S-tops Peter Hultqvist and Morgan Johansson go hard for the Prime Minister at a press meeting.
They demand that the Sweden Democrats be thrown out of the government office and that the government break its cooperation with the party.
– If Ulf Kristersson can’t handle it, he must hand over to someone who can handle his job better, says Morgan Johansson, foreign policy spokesperson for S.
The background is, among other things, Jimmie Åkesson’s outburst this weekend about demolishing mosques, which S believes has raised the threat image against Sweden.
“Division and disinformation”
– Opinion after opinion is made that is extremely threatening to Sweden, it is not a mistake, it happens time after time after time. The Sweden Democrats are moving the boundaries in this way, says Morgan Johansson.
Peter Hultqvist, defense policy spokesperson for S, describes SD’s actions as taken from a “Russian handbook for division and disinformation”.
– I am not saying that Åkesson was in contact with the Russian intelligence service, but in his lack of judgment he is playing Russian interests into his hands.
Something he believes destroys Sweden’s NATO membership.
– He (Ulf Kristersson) must take control of his entire government base and remove those who actively make Sweden more dangerous and who undermine the NATO process, he says.
Weak leadership
Morgan Johansson mentions a number of security incidents in the past year.
– It started last spring when the security police determined that Sweden has gone from being a legitimate target for Islamist terror to a priority target for Islamist terror.
He also mentions the attack on the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, the increased security classification and the terrorist attack in Brussels.
Something that S believes that the SD fired on, among other things by the fact that SD leader Richard Jomshof called the prophet Muhammad a mass murderer and slave trader during the Koran crisis.
– It becomes dangerous because of Kristersson’s weak leadership, because every day the situation becomes more and more dangerous, says Morgan Johansson.
He also brings up Jimmie Åkesson’s outburst against Center leader Muharrem Demirok, where the SD leader made a point of Demirok previously being a Turkish citizen. According to Morgan Johansson, the play was racist.
– If a party leader tells another party leader that we cannot listen to you, because you are not really Swedish. Haven’t you crossed all the lines of decency then? Then someone has to act against it, says Morgan Johansson.
No motion of no confidence
The S-toppers, on the other hand, do not want to go so far as to raise a motion of no confidence against Ulf Kristersson at the moment. Nor do they want to say that S would support the government if they broke off cooperation with SD.
– We want to put the ball in Kristersson’s lap, he has to show that he is a man for his hat, he has to take measures that are concrete and have some consequence. His statements after SD’s strange statements over the years have not helped, says Peter Hultqvist.
It was during a speech this weekend at the party’s country days that Jimmie Åkesson said that he wants to stop the construction of new mosques and to confiscate and demolish mosque buildings where anti-democratic, anti-Swedish, homophobic or anti-Semitic propaganda is spread.
In a comment in SVT, Ulf Kristersson has called the statement “a disrespectful and polarizing way of expressing oneself”.