THE RISE of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats: ‘We don’t feel at home any more, and it’s their fault’.

Politicians and the media in Sweden have maintained a stance unique in Europe in shunning the Sweden Democrats, excluding them from political debate and directing fierce criticism at anyone who suggests that the country’s asylum policy is a problem. Sweden currently accepts more than twice as many refugees per capita as any other of the 34 member states of the OECD.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, the centre-right former prime minister who has called on Swedes at the election to “open your hearts” to refugees, made headlines again when he said the country had “more space than you can imagine” to receive asylum seekers, who are expected to number 80,000 this year – a new Kristianstad every year. But as cracks have begun to appear in the Nordic model that has served Sweden so well, the country’s pro-immigration consensus has come under pressure. In Kristianstad itself, where 12,000 residents were born abroad, one in five voters chose the Sweden Democrats in September, and almost everyone has friends or workmates who are sympathisers. Even the party’s opponents hesitate to call it fascist.