Siv Jensen’s brutal Christmas wash – VG

Either you are with me or you are courage with me. The words FRP leader Siv Jensen used when meeting with the press on Tuesday night weren’t right, but that’s what she meant.

“Enough now. There is a limit.” It is almost as if he heard Dolkesjø’s rush when Siv Jensen and Sylvi Listhaug did a brief test with the rioters in Oslo Frp. The county leader is excluded and the home team is closed indefinitely The only difference from the old days is that now it is Carl I. Hagen and his followers who have to fight for their political life.

Exactly one year ago, Bergen Frp closed. Now the journey has reached the capital. Oslo Frp has long been on a kind of blacklist in the party office. Elections have fared poorly and have struggled to cultivate strong profiles. Instead, an environment called the national conservative has emerged, led by the three-headed troll Geir Ugland Jacobsen, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, and Carl I. Hagen.

Moderate FRPs in the capital have the protection of their own county team like the plague. The troublemakers have actually had a solo party at home while Siv Jensen and company. has been in government. Many have shook their heads because of what has grown, but little has been done. The impression is that it was only when Ugland Jacobsen challenged Siv Jensen for first place in Oslo that action was taken.

Now they are taking the drastic step of shutting out the county leader and putting the entire local team under administration. The history of the party is that this is absolutely necessary to remove weeds in the bud. They believe that Ugland Jacobsen is leading the party in a direction that the party should not, and that he is a disloyal instigator. Now he is accused of undermining the reputation of the party.

One part of the story told a little more calmly is that this is necessary to restore Siv Jensen’s authority in the party. She can no longer see her group’s forces challenge her without counterattacking. The fact that it is undemocratic and an expression of an unhealthy party culture to exclude a legally elected county leader does not upset the elected representatives in Frp to any appreciable degree. Outside of it, it has been feedback from local teams across the country. On the liberal wing, they tend to bounce champagne. In the alley.

Siv Jensen has also done many things well. It was a stroke of genius to let MP Sylvi Listhaug lead the press conference. The pretext is that Siv Jensen is incompetent in treating Ugland Jacobsen, but no one believes that he doesn’t have more than one finger in the game. Listhaug has a big star on the right wing of the party and can stall criticism. At the same time, he ties Listhaug to the mast.

It’s also worth noting that Tromsø resident Per-Willy Amundsen was given a seat on the new interim board in Oslo Frp. It is apt to assure everyone that they continue to take the strict immigration policy very seriously.

At the same time, it was a press conference that raised more questions than it answered. The party leadership was very unspecific about how Ugland Jacobsen has damaged the party’s reputation. They say there is a limit, but where does that limit go? By calling himself a national conservative? Supporting Donald Trump’s election fraud allegations? Or challenging the party leader?

They also do not respond well to whether those who share Ugland Jacobsen’s views should follow him out of the game. The forces of various provincial councils have supported the idea of ​​being patriotic beacons and national conservatives. The most prominent voices continue to be Carl I. Hagen and Christian Tybring-Gjedde. There is already speculation about what will happen to the nomination in Oslo Frp. Many believe that Jensen must seize the opportunity to clip Tybring-Gjedde’s wings when he first uses the big mallet. There has also been talk of Oslo as a port of refuge for MP Jon Engen-Helgheim.

The FRP leader apparently gave Hagen and Tybring-Gjedde a life preserver. Either they have to get away from national conservatism and adapt to the party’s program, or they have to find something else to do. Maybe it’s not that tempting either?

But, for its part, the party leadership should give a much better answer to what is needed than “weaken the party’s reputation.” If that’s the criteria for being excluded from Frp, the list can easily get long.