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The Moderates have concluded their first party meeting in government in over ten years.
But the road is long to reach the party’s goals and eventually become the biggest.
When the Moderat meeting in Umeå ended on Sunday, party secretary Karin Enström was satisfied with both the decisions and the atmosphere.
The party convention was the first in government since 2011. It made it easier to forget that the result in the 2022 parliamentary election was otherwise disappointing.
In his general meeting speech, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson claimed that M is now the center of Swedish politics. He also proclaimed his party as the victor in the big issues of our time: Swedish NATO membership, criminal policy, migration and nuclear power.
New goals
The goals the party board set for the next election are: Retain government power, govern in more regions and that more people than today should live in moderate-governed municipalities.
In the longer term, the goal is to become Sweden’s largest party. According to M’s own analyses, the party has the potential to get just over 30 percent of the vote.
But the road there is long. In the latest Sifo survey in SvD, M falls back to 18.2 percent, while S increases to 37.8. SD is now statistically significantly greater than M with 20.7 percent.
At the same time, M’s two government partners, L and KD, are clearly under parliamentary obstruction.
SD scares
In the 2022 parliamentary election, M became only the third largest party and clearly retreated in its traditionally strongest stronghold – the big cities, not least among women.
– The single most important explanation is the concern about what SD’s influence on the moderate-led government would mean, says deputy party secretary Martin Borgs.
The metropolitan voters must win M back if the goals are to be achieved, not least in Stockholm. The party strategists agree on that.
– The most important thing we can do is show that the concern is unfounded, says Borgs.
Is concerned
The cooperation with SD may well become even closer after the next one. If SD continues to grow, it will be difficult to keep the party out of a bourgeois government.
Ungdomsförbundet (Muf) chairman Douglas Thor does not think that the party should tactic too much around metropolitan voters.
– It is possible to pursue policies that gather broadly. I don’t believe in a strategy where you try desperately to win back metropolitan voters and the women. Better to think how to win back voters broadly in these groups, so that we win voters everywhere, says Thor.
He is worried about the party settling down with the current situation.
– I think you are a bit cautious and a bit worried about that calm. If we don’t now dare to develop the Moderates’ policy in addition to the government’s policy, when will we do it? says Thor.
No heated debates
Much of the policy adopted by the party convention is already driven by the government. Thor warns against repeating the mistakes made under the Alliance government.
– We were quite empty of reforms during the second mandate period. And I’m worried about that now, he says.
The really heated debates did not take place at the meeting. Especially after the party leadership backed away from a proposal that risked watering down the municipalities’ veto against new wind turbines, which angered the councillors.
Nor was there any dissatisfaction that the government did not lower taxes as much as many expected.
The meeting contented itself with deciding that the party should work for reduced capital gains tax, reduced tax on ISK savings and reduced tax for small beer breweries.
FACTSDecision at the M meeting
Abolish the multi-child allowance
Enhanced care guarantee for bup (child and youth psychiatry) – no more than 15 days until the first appointment
Systembolaget must be allowed to sell chilled drinks and have longer opening hours. Actors other than Systembolaget must also be allowed to sell beer and wine.
Act to lower the capital gains tax on the sale of housing to increase mobility in the housing market
Act to lower the tax on ISK accounts and endowment insurance
Differentiated beer tax, so that microbreweries can receive lower tax than large breweries
No to municipal police – but investigate increased security in the local community
Faced with a new crime – breach of the peace of the elderly
Abolish the free amount for the loan part of the student aid
Free rental in new construction
Several decisions on wind power, among other things, M wants to investigate whether the property tax paid by wind power can be returned to the municipalities concerned.
Municipalities should not be forced to veto earlier in the process than today, but at an early stage sufficient information is guaranteed to be able to assess the consequences of a possible wind power establishment, in order to have the opportunity to take a position on a future establishment earlier in the process
Residents living near wind turbines must be guaranteed fair compensation from the wind power company during the entire lifetime of a wind turbine
Residents close to wind turbines get the right to redeem residential properties, at the value the property had before the wind turbine establishment
Neighboring municipalities whose residents are affected by a wind power establishment are given the opportunity to submit their views
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