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Conservatism still arouses strong feelings among liberals. All politically interested Swedes recently noticed this when a collaboration between a conservative and a liberal think tank made liberal opinion leaders cry and scream.
It was the think tank Oikos, affiliated with the socially conservative Sweden Democrats, and the think tank Timbro, financed by the business community’s interest organization and politically more affiliated with the traditional liberal right, that together presented a reform program for a future Sweden. The program was concrete and touched on several rather detailed things in various subject areas such as economics and culture. Not so much open ideology, then. Nevertheless, the initiative was not appreciated by liberals.
In the liberal local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning, editorial writer Tove Hovemyr wrote that cooperation between conservatives and liberals can never be a “freedom project”. Since Hovemyr is a liberal, it was primarily her own think tank, Timbro, that she turned to. Timbro, Hovemyr argued, should refrain from developing a concrete policy program with a social conservative think tank that professes nationalism. Nationalists are sworn enemies of democracy and openness, and true liberals must stand up for the individual against the collective and for openness against borders and isolation.
The name of the jointly developed reform program is “Tidö 2.0”. This is explained by the fact that the right-wing alliance that now governs Sweden, where three traditional liberal and liberal-conservative parties are in government but implement a policy that they developed together with the Sweden Democrats, works based on a joint agreement called the “Tidö Agreement”. Tidö 2.0 is thus intended to be a continuation of the work carried out during the current term of office.
The authors of the reform program believe that the first Tidö Agreement was characterized by the fact that there were so many major structural problems that needed to be solved with urgent measures. Immigration needed to be managed, the rampant crime rate needed to be curbed, and destructive climate policy also needed to be stopped. Now the four right-wing parties have slowly but surely reversed the trend. Refugee immigration is the lowest in 20 years. Deadly gangster violence has decreased. Fuel prices have been lowered, and plans have been drawn up for new nuclear reactors. All to create calm, stability and order in Swedish society after eight years of deeply destructive progressive politics. But now, the authors believe, the four right-wing parties must move on and look ahead.
And that is why the reform program has been drawn up, which contains a series of detailed proposals in the economy, culture, labor market, family policy and much more. But this caused liberal opinion leaders to react very strongly at the time. And this despite the fact that two liberal or at least liberal-conservative parties already have a formalized collaboration with the social conservative Sweden Democrats!
As is well known, Sweden is one of the countries in Europe where one of the conservative and nationalist parties that are part of the ECR party group in the European Parliament is in power at the national level. Just as in Italy, where Fratelli d’Italia under Giorgia Meloni holds the post of prime minister, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden are part of a government coalition. It is true that the Sweden Democrats are not formally part of the government and do not have any ministerial posts, but it is undeniably the Sweden Democrats’ substantive issues that have characterized the policies that have come from the right-wing government that has now ruled since 2022. The party that has had the most difficulty getting its members and its active politicians to accept the collaboration is the small “Liberals”. And it must be admitted that the Liberals are the party that has gone the furthest in renewing themselves and challenging old truths to make the Tidö Agreement hold. A few years ago, the Liberals were part of a broad left-wing collaboration in which the Social Democrats were the ones who got to sit in the government. It was a big step for the party to take when it decided to move to the right.
And basically, most of Swedish politics for a few years now has been about the relationship with the Sweden Democrats and their policies. Several parties are currently deeply divided on this issue. The leading layers of the Liberals and the Moderates (the old traditional right-wing party) have chosen to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats, but many party activists and many opinion leaders would have preferred to see cooperation with the Social Democrats.
And that was what was noticeable when the rapprochement of two think tanks between classical liberalism and the new conservatism that the Sweden Democrats represent aroused such strong emotions.
But what were the issues that made the liberal opinion leaders react so strongly then? A lot of it concerns culture, media and education. Tove Hovemyr in Upsala Nya Tidning, which we mentioned earlier, writes, among other things: “They want to see more political control over culture, such as “democratization” of public art (a euphemism for political cronyism) and interference in the teaching of the Royal Academy of Art. Despite the crucial role in Sweden’s preparedness, they want to halve the budget for SR and SVT (two public service companies).”
According to the authors of the reform program, “democratization of public art” is about ensuring that the art that is exhibited publicly and becomes part of the public space should not only be produced by experts and activist civil servants. There is a fairly large gap today between the intellectual elites’ view of art and public decoration and the view that ordinary people have of art. And when one means that public art should be democratized, one means that the public should be consulted, that it should be allowed to choose between different alternatives and that the voters’ representatives, the politicians, should also have a say. Intellectualized liberalism perceives this as antidemocratic because they believe that politicians (and their clients) should have no say when it comes to art and culture.
Tovemyr also mentioned that politicians should interfere in what happens at the “Royal Academy of Fine Arts” in Stockholm. And that is true: the authors of the reform program want this college to establish an institute for classical architecture and art. This should not mean that other arts cannot be taught or practiced at the college. But since there is no education today in classical architecture, for example, it is reasonable for the state to establish such education. But left-wing intellectual liberals do not want to do that. Then they think that politicians are interfering not only in free culture but also in higher education. And thirdly, it was the Public Service that was to be reformed. Here, the reform program proposes that the Public Service (which does both radio and TV in Sweden and has a number of channels with different focuses) halve its budget. It also proposes that the Public Service concentrate its activities on news reporting, public information and culture. The pure entertainment programs can be done by others.
Swedes who vote for right-wing parties currently have a fairly low level of trust in the Public Service because they believe it is politically left-wing. One way to counteract the impact that the Public Service has on Swedish society would therefore be to streamline its operations.
It is worth remembering that liberalism once arose as a reaction to Western traditionalism. It was against Western conservatives that our European liberals once had to fight when they wanted universal suffrage and democratize society.
This is still alive among many liberals. They still see European, Western conservatism or traditionalism as something fundamentally evil and anti-progress. Therefore, it has difficulty responding rationally to constructive and rational proposals for social improvements that come from the new right. For example, it refuses to see that the media and culture are already politicized and that the changes that the new political right wants to see in cultural and media policy consist of creating a greater diversity of opinions in public discourse.
Swedish liberals are doing quite well in collaborating with the new conservative right in politics. It doesn’t seem to be going as well for opinion leaders.