If you ask anyone in Finland which party thrives on anti-immigration sentiment and bigotry, the answer is simple: Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and Blue Reform. The difference between these two is that the former is a racist party that came out of the closet and the latter one which went back to the closet. Here’s the question: Which party is the second-most anti-immigration party in Finland?
Without a doubt that party would be the National Coalition Party (NCP).
The National Coalition Party, or Kokoomus in Finnish, is the second-most anti-immigration party in Finland after the Perussuomalaiset-Blue Reform parties.
There is a long list of politicians in that party that keenly supports structural racism. Their policies and ideology is based on racism but with a deceitful cordial smile.
Disagree? Why not look at some of their politicians like Wille Rydman, Susana Koski, Atte Kaleva, Pia Kauma, Elina Lepomäki, Petteri Orpo, Paula Risikko and many, many others.
These above-mentioned politicians openly support structural racism and don’t want anything to change the situation.
Minister Orpo, who is also the chairperson of the NCP, was and is instrumental for having tightened Finland’s immigration policy and undermined the human rights of asylum seekers. One of his many infamous anti-immigration statements was that he equated asylum seekers from Russia as waer from “a leaking roof.”
Rydman, who is known among NCP politicians as the Jussi Halla-aho of that party, is in the dark about what rights people have in a culturally diverse society.
Halla-aho is the chairperson of the anti-immigration and Islamophobic and far-right PS. He was convicted by the supreme administrative court in 2012 of ethnic agitation.
Koski used the chair the youth league of the NCP, which wanted not too long ago to scrap the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman office and do away with weak laws that govern hate speech.
Kaleva is another aspiring NCP politicians eyeing the 2019 parliamentary elections. His latest book says it all about his opportunistic worldview: Jihad and Terror.
And who could forget the “baby carriage lady” Kauma? She’s an MP from Espoo, who pointed an accusing finger at migrant mothers claiming that they bought with social aid new baby carriages while Finnish mothers bought used ones. Kauma never backed her statements, but at the end, her claims were proven false and based on hearsay.
Paula Risikko, the former interior minister and speaker of parliament, is infamous for her thumbs when she visited a far-right Finland First camp. She has also shown a lot of hostility towards undocumented migrants, which she calls “illegal migrants.”
Without a doubt, the NCP is Finland’s second-most hostile party towards migrants and cultural diversity after the PS-Blue Reform.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.
A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.