After publishing a tweet on Saturday that people should vote for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* to keep Finland and Europe white, the far-right party’s youth wing vice chairperson Toni Jalonen offered after six days the following statement but without an apology, according to Yle News:

“My tweet was thoughtless and I acted impulsively when the idea struck me. I later realised that it was misguided, but the damage was already done. I have learned my lesson and moving forward, I will use better judgment when it comes to the organization’s communications.”

Do I believe him? Not.

Is this another prank by the far-right party to get attention?

Definitely.

The trick pulled by the PS Youth is one of the oldest tricks in the books used to get media exposure. Eventually, the outrage picks up and the politician or association making such a claim backs down. By it’s too late because the story is already out there.

The picture is from an EU ad with the following text by the youth organization: “Vote for the Peruomalaiset so that Finland won’t look like this.”

Let’s not forget that the PS is a party that gets its support and following is by making racist statements that fueling nativist nationalism. The only apology that would work is if they are voted back to the political minor leagues.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. 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.