My job is to keep it clean

On Tuesday, Expressen published reporter David Baas’ revelation about how Dennis Askling, leader of the party group in Haninge and employee in the SD parliamentary office, in a talk with a fellow party from the party writes Nazi greetings, speaks disparagingly about the ” Negroes “and disseminates racial ideological reasoning.

Jimmie Åkesson: “Usually he handles it through exclusion”

Jimmie Åkesson is interviewed in Aktuellt on Tuesday night, where he is asked about the reveal.

It is certainly not the first time that something like this has been revealed in your party, I think there are 300 people who have been excluded since 2010 and many who have left voluntarily, how is it that something like this is discovered again and again? host Nike Nylander asks.

– My job is to stay clean when things like this are discovered and I want to say that we take care of that job as best we can. That is to say, when someone expresses perceptions that do not belong to our party, we usually face it through exclusion or by the simple fact that the person leaves, as I understand that happens in this case.

– But it is clear that there are, there are extremists with us and there are extremists with the Social Democrats who had problems with the Islamists a few years ago, the Center Party, the Green Party. They’re there, of course, but thankfully it’s on the sidelines, says Jimmie Åkesson.

Jimmie Åkesson: “I can’t read people’s inner thoughts”

What do you think is the reason why people who have these kinds of opinions apply to your particular party?

– Yes, why does an Islamist apply to the Social Democrats? So I can’t answer that. I have no thoughts about it, other than that we have not been exactly clear about how we see this type of perception, but quite the opposite. During my time as party chair, we have been very, very clear about how we view extremism, racism, and that kind of expression. Couldn’t have escaped anyone. And if you still think you belong to the Swedish Democrats, then you are wrong.

How is it that journalists discover and reveal such a thing and you don’t discover such a thing for yourself? asks Nike Nylander.

– You cannot, as much as you want to, read the most intimate thoughts of people, but you have them for yourself. So it is the case that journalists have a slightly different role than I have as a politician and party leader. Now this is a private chat that a journalist came across and later posted. As a party leader or party president, I cannot go around searching through the private chats of my party members, it is not possible.

But are you happy that it came out?

– I think it’s great. And this is not the first time I have thanked Expressen for that, because we had never found out, says Jimmie Åkesson.