‘Next Stop Kabul’ – Populist MP Branded ‘Racist’ for Proposing Migrants Be Put on One-Way ‘Repatriation Train’

Train on tracks
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Chris Tomlinson

A member of Sweden’s populist Sweden Democrats (SD) was branded racist this week after a tweet joking that a subway train decorated in SD colours was a “repatriation train” taking migrants to Kabul.

Tobias Andersson, who serves as a member of the Swedish parliament and as legal policy spokesman for the Sweden Democrats, commented on a picture of a Stockholm subway train decorated eith the blue flowers of his party on Tuesday.

“Welcome to the repatriation train. You hold a one-way ticket. Next stop, Kabul!” Andersson wrote.

The tweet was criticised by a number of prominent figures in Sweden, including Centre Party leader Annie Lööf, who wrote: “This is so undignified and racist. I find it so hard to understand how decent bourgeois liberal colleagues want to go to the polls with this party and give them influence.”

Climate Minister Annika Strandhäll, a member of the ruling Social Democrats, also commented on the tweet, saying: “This is SD’s justice policy spokesperson. He can become Minister of Justice if Ulf and Jimmie win the election,” referring to centre-right Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson and SD leader Jimmie Åkesson.

According to a report from broadcaster SVT, however, the attention given to the tweet helped it to go viral on Swedish social media, particularly on Twitter where the term “Kabul” was trending earlier this week, while Tobias Andersson trended on Google.

The message from Andersson comes after party leader Åkesson and migration policy spokesman Ludvig Aspling penned an opinion article for the newspaper Aftonbladet earlier in the year that called or the government to start repatriating migrants who failed to integrate into Swedish society or were long-term unemployed.

“Remigration is not a miracle solution, but the failures of recent decades show that it must be an option – a solution for all those who live in long-term exclusion,” the pair said. “Incentive structures and the welfare system must be reformed, so that people in exclusion cannot get caught up in welfare dependency, but are either forced into society or encouraged to remigrate.”

Swedish voters are set to go to the ballot box on the 11th of September and recent polling shows that a possible centre-right coalition involving the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals could reach nearly 50 per cent of the vote, while the ruling Social Democrats remain in the low thirites.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

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