Danish People's Party

[[File:Dansk Folkeparti new small logo 10 2023 positive.svg|thumb|165px|The party initials stands for "Dipshit Fascists."]]
{{politics}}
The '''Danish People's Party''', '''''Dansk Folkeparti''''', is a [[nationalist]] and [[populism|populist]] political party in [[Denmark]]. It is also frequently referred to as a [[racism|racist]] and [[far right]] party, although these are labels that the party rejects. 

==Ideology==
The party was founded in 1995, by a splinter group of the {{wpl|Progress Party (Denmark)|Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet)|.}}<ref group=note>The Danish Progress Party still exists, but is a spent political force having failed to win any national and few local seats since 1998. The party lost its last municipal seat at the local elections of 2009.</ref> Whereas the Progress Party (PP) had been created in 1972 as a motley but somewhat [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] [[tax protest]] and quite chaotic affair, which only later took up anti-[[immigration]], the Danish People's Party (DPP) was created to enforce strict compliance with the party line and with support for the [[welfare state]] as one of its cornerstones alongside anti-immigration<ref group=note>Just in case the party's name isn't obvious enough, it has long used the slogan ''"Vote Danish!"''</ref> and "soft" [[Eurosceptic]]ism.<ref group=note>This means that the DPP doesn't want to dismantle or a Danish exit from the [[European Union]]. The party even accepts the EU's internal market, just not 
filthy foreigners' right to steal jobs or mooch on welfare in Denmark
 the free movement of labor bit. Similarly, the party clamours for a [[Secure the border|reintroduction of border controls]] to keep out 
filthy foreigners
 criminals and illegal immigrants.</ref> The DPP radically toned down the tax protest element of its PP predecessor and instead focused on freezing tax rates, though sympathetic to minor [[tax cuts]]. Other focus areas are protection of the elderly and socially disadvantaged's interests (though preferably only for [[Racism|"proper" Danish citizens]]), and a tough on crime attitude which is also linked to the DPP's anti-immigration policy by heightening [[moral panic]]s about immigrant [[gang]]s.

As for being racist and far right, the DPP is racist to the extent that [[xenophobia]] and [[Islamophobia]] overlap with racism and some of its members are prone to the kind of "casual racism" that make them use such phrases as "Negro huts" ("negerhytter") when discussing development aid to [[Africa]].<ref>[http://www.altinget.dk/artikel/df-maaske-kunne-vi-adoptere-et-udviklingsland ''DF: Måske kunne vi ”adoptere” ét udviklingsland''] (''DPP: Perhaps we could ”adopt” <u>one</u> developing country''), Altinget, March 27th, 2013.</ref> As for being far right, the DPP's anti-immigration and [[Islamophobia|anti-Muslim]] policies and suggestions have become ever harsher since the party's founding as other Danish parties (from [[Conservatism#Protestant sphere|Conservatives]] to [[Social democracy|Social Democrats]]) have moved their immigration stances closer to the DPP's which has then upped the ante to further [[Populism|"outbid"]] these other parties. However, the DPP leadership has from the very beginning been extremely diligent in keeping out any [[white supremacy]] or [[Neo-Nazi]] tendencies and any member associating with such organizations is immediately excluded. The DPP was thus originally created as a socially [[conservatism|conservative]] splinter group in contrast to some of its anti-immigration allies, such as the [[Sweden Democrats]], which has its roots among the [[white supremacy]] movement, or the Norwegian Progress Party ([[Fremskrittspartiet]])<ref group=note>It's not just a coincidence that the Norwegian and Danish Progress Parties share the same name as their ideologies are or at least were broadly similar.</ref> and Dutch [[Party for Freedom]], which were originally libertarian.

Prior to the 2019 parliamtary election, two other far-right parties arrived on the Danish political landscape: Nye Borgerlige (The New Right<ref group=note>The term “borgerlige” is not easy to translate directly into English, but is used in Danish political discourse to signal any right of centre political party or the entire bloc of parties in the Danish parliament occupying this spectrum. Hence, a translation based on US political terminology would probably be The New Conservatives.</ref>) in 2015, and Rasmus Paludan's party [[Stram Kurs]] (Hard Line) in 2017.

==Performance==
Until 2019, the DPP was arguably one of the most successful political parties in Denmark as, bar a slight dip in 2011, it continuously increased its share of the vote ever since its founding to become the second-largest party in the {{wpl|Folketing}} (the Danish parliament) at the election of June 18th, 2015 with 21.1% of the vote.<ref group=note>For comparison, its first election in 1998 gained the DPP 7.4% of the vote and in the 2001-2011 elections, the DPP took home between 12.0% and 13.8% of the vote.</ref> Having started out by gobbling up mainly former Social Democratic voters, the 2015 election has seen a huge influx of voters who voted for the mainstream agrarian [[liberal]] party, {{wpl|Venstre (Denmark)|''Venstre'',}} in 2011.<ref>A fifth of those who voted for the DPP had voted for ''Venstre'' in 2011. [http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/Valg2015/Artikler/2015/06/19/111050.htm ''Se tallene: Her kommer Dansk Folkepartis vælgere fra''] (''Look at the numbers: This is where DPP voters come from''), {{wpl|DR (broadcaster)|the Danish Broadcasting Corporation,}} June 19th, 2015</ref> One likely reason was that ''Venstre's'' leader, {{wpl|Lars Løkke Rasmussen|Lars Løkke Rasmussen,}} is broadly seen as a personally shady character, having let his party and other organizations pay for his own personal expenditures on things like [[alcohol]], clothes and travels, whereas DPP leader {{wpl|Kristian Thulesen Dahl}} is squeaky clean.

However, nothing lasts forever and the [[European Union|European Parliament]] election of 2019 saw the DPP slashed from their former place as the largest Danish EP party, holding 4 seats since their widely successful 2014 EP election, to one of the smallest, retaining only a single seat (of the current 13 allotted to Denmark, which will increase to 14 after [[Brexit]]; when and if that ever happens). This reversal of fortunes may be due to several scandals considering the use of European funds for political work, the departure of their dominant MEP, Morten Messerschmidt, who instead decided to run for the Danish parliament, the DPP’s almost complete lack of a clear and coherent [[climate change|climate policy]] in an election where that theme was very prominent, as well as the diminishing appeal of their brand of EU scepticism, which has lauded Brexit as a great stride for national sovereignty.<ref>[https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/ep-valg/karin-axelsson-om-det-danske-ep-resultat-ydmygelse-af-nationalismen-i-df-og ''Karin Axelsson om det danske EP-resultat: Ydmygelse af nationalismen i DF og liberal lykkerus'' (''Karin Axelsson on the Danish EP result: Humiliation of the DPP and liberal euphoria''], the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, May 25th, 2019</ref>

The DPP performance in the Danish general election on June 5th, 2019 was as catastrophic as at the EP elections in May. The DPP was reduced from 21.1% of the vote in the prior general election of 2015 to just 8.7%, losing 21 of its 37 seats in the Danish parliament.<ref>[https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/resultater/folketingsvalg ''Resultater'' (''Results'' - of the Danish general election)], the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, June 6th, 2019</ref> Interestingly these losses were in the main not to the two new parties to the right of the DPP, ''Nye Borgerlige'' and ''Stram Kurs'', of which only the former managed (barely) to cross the Danish electoral threshold of 2%, but to the “traditional” parties of the right, the (at least formally) [[Classical Liberalism|classical liberal]] (or, arguably, agrarian liberal) ''Venstre''<ref group=note>The name literally means ''Left'', but it is a centre-right party. The odd name is due to it historically being to the left of the ''Right'' (''Højre'') party which later became today’s Conservatives. Similarly, the Danish ''Radical Left'' (''Radikale Venstre'') party is actually a [[social liberal]] centrist party and owes its name to it being to the left of Venstre. Yup, Danish politics can be odd and confusing. Not to mention that these days, ''Venstre'' tends to be more nationalist conservative than classical liberal in their actual politics.</ref> and the Conservatives. This reduction in its number of seats also reduced the DPP from being the second largest party, slightly ahead of ''Venstre'', but behind the Social Democrats to a distant third, being well behind both ''Venstre'' and the Social Democrats and only a whisker ahead of the Social Liberals, a party hated and despised with a vengeance by the DPP.

In the 2022 general election the party suffered their worst result to date, winning just 2.6 percent of the vote and 5 seats. This has been attributed largely to defections to the {{wpl|Denmark Democrats|Denmark Democrats}}, which eclipsed DPP as Denmark's largest far-right party.<ref>[https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/11-ud-af-14-nyvalgte-danmarksdemokrater-har-fortid-i-df ''11 ud af 14 nyvalgte Danmarksdemokrater har fortid i DF''] (11 out of 14 newly elected Danish Democrats have a past in the DPP), Altinget, 3 Nov 2022.</ref>

The {{wpl|2025 Danish local elections}} was something of a comeback for the DPP (5.9% overall), as some of the fragmented right wing parties had previously collapsed (e.g. ''Nye Borgerlige''/''New Right''). This left the field to the DPP and the Denmark Democrats with the latter making a pretty decent showing in their municipal electoral debut (4.7% overall), but one far more geographically fragmented than the DPP. <ref group=note>One nickname for the Denmark Democrats is the Jutish People’s Party, pointing to both its commonalities with the DPP, along with its “provincial populist” praise of and strongholds in rural Denmark, particularly Jutland, and its penchant for “Copenhagen bashing”.</ref> Still, while an improvement on the prior, disastrous results that put the DPP close to the 2% national electoral threshold, the results still left the party well  below its numbers from the 2000s and 2010s. Even the combined DPP/DD vote was around what the DPP managed by itself in the 2000s. Given the difference between local and national elections, however, things might pan out differently for the DPP and DD nationally, although the local results seemed to follow general trends in the national opinion polls.

==See also==
* [[Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons]]
* [[Rasmus Paludan]]

==External links==
* [https://danskfolkeparti.dk Danish People's Party website. Accessed May 17<small>th</small>, 2019.]
* [https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/generation-df/generation-df-2/generation-df-5-5 Danmarks Radio (Danish Broadcasting Corporation), »Generation DF« ("Generation Danish People's Party" - TV documentary series). Accessed May 17<small>th</small>, 2019.]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{stub|politics}}

[[Category:European political parties]]
[[Category:Far-right political parties]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Denmark]]

Categories: European political parties, Far-right political parties, Racism, Denmark