For years, socialists, social democrats, and the broader European center-left have struggled with a paralyzing identity crisis. Their traditional voters, industrial workers, lower-middle-class families, the quietly anxious middle strata who once trusted left-leaning parties to defend economic security, have drifted toward nationalist and right-populist movements. In response, many on the left have asked a provocative question: Is Denmark’s hard-line stance on immigration the accidental blueprint for center-left survival? And, in darker corners of the debate: Is turning “evil” against immigration now the only way to stay electorally alive?
It is a question soaked in discomfort, ideological betrayal, and uneasy political arithmetic. And yet it is not going away.
Denmark’s Social Democrats once embodied textbook progressive ideals: welfare universalism, internationalist empathy, moral confidence in the strength of an open society. Then came the seismic political shift. Under Mette Frederiksen, the party embraced some of Europe’s most restrictive immigration policies, policies that rivalled, and in some cases exceeded, those of the right. The move shocked Europe’s center-left, but it also produced an inconvenient truth: the Social Democrats won. They stabilized their base. They proved that a party could wrap a hardened immigration stance inside a still-generous welfare state and remain, at least nominally, progressive.
Other struggling European center-left parties began to look northward with a mix of envy and dread.
But what Denmark pulled off is not a simple trick of political triangulation. It is a philosophical contortion: a socialist party defending a welfare state by walling it off from perceived external pressures. The logic runs like this: Our social model is precious. It only works if we maintain tight social cohesion. That cohesion is threatened by immigration. Therefore, in the name of protecting the welfare state, we must keep people out. It is a reversal of the traditional progressive instinct, which imagined that prosperity could expand to accommodate newcomers.
The question, now, is whether other European center-left parties should follow.
The temptation is obvious. Voters who feel economically or culturally vulnerable often respond to politicians who promise control over borders, over identity, over the pace of societal change. The right has capitalized on this for two decades. Why shouldn’t the left borrow the message, soften the edges, and wrap it in a cardigan of well-meaning social protection?
Yet beneath the surface of this strategy lies a moral corrosion that cannot be politely brushed aside. If the left embraces restrictive immigration as electoral salvation, what remains of its animating ethos? A left that turns immigration into a tool, an acceptable casualty in a larger war for political relevance—risks losing its soul even as it wins votes.
But Europe’s center-left crisis is not just moral; it is structural. Economic transformations, automation, and globalization have hollowed out the old working-class coalition. Social democrats were slow to adapt. They offered technocratic reassurances while right-wing populists offered passion. They defended the European project while voters felt unheard. By the time center-left parties recognized their error, trust had evaporated.
It is within this vacuum that the “Danish model” has become both a warning and a lifeline.
If the left is to consider immigration policy as a survival tactic, it must first examine whether Denmark’s success is truly replicable. Denmark is small, cohesive, linguistically and culturally unified, and deeply consensus-oriented. Its welfare system is robust, its institutions respected. The Danish political psyche places a premium on conformity and equality, conditions that make restrictive immigration policies politically digestible in a way they may not be elsewhere.
Transplanting this model to larger, more diverse countries such as Germany, France, or even Spain would not be a clean operation. In fact, it might produce the opposite effect: inflaming societal divisions, normalizing xenophobia, and lending legitimacy to the far-right’s core narrative rather than neutralizing it.
And yet the center-left cannot pretend the immigration issue will evaporate if ignored.
So what would a morally defensible, electorally viable alternative look like?
It begins with honesty, an admission that the “open-door idealism” of the early 2010s collided with capacity limits, integration failures, and public fears that were not wholly irrational. The left cannot simply tell voters they’re wrong and expect gratitude. It must acknowledge that borders exist, that states manage them, and that immigration policy must be grounded in both humanity and realism.
The center-left can if it chooses, craft a narrative that does not scapegoat immigrants but still addresses anxieties. It can focus on competence rather than cruelty: smarter integration policy, faster asylum procedures, firm but fair border control, and a renewed emphasis on labour-market inclusion. It can frame immigration as manageable, not catastrophic; as an investment, not a threat.
What it cannot do is out-right the right. Not ethically, and not sustainably. Normalizing cruelty corrodes political culture. And once the left walks through that door, the right will always be waiting with something harsher.
Denmark’s model may have delivered short-term survival, but it also carved a permanent scar into the ideological map of European social democracy. The question every center-left party must ask itself is not only whether it wants to win but what kind of victory it seeks. A hollow victory built on borrowed fear may preserve seats, but it will not rebuild trust.
The real blueprint for survival lies not in turning “evil” against immigration, but in reclaiming political courage: the courage to speak plainly about challenges without surrendering principles, to address voters’ concerns without validating prejudice, and to design policies that balance solidarity with pragmatism.
If the center-left cannot find a way to do this, then Denmark’s path may indeed become its default future, not because it is right, but because it is easy. And yet easy paths rarely lead to renewal. They lead, slowly and quietly, to surrender.
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