Peter Eriksson’s critique of MP, Fridolin and Romson at SVT

Of: Joachim kerpner

Published: February 14, 2021 at 08:03

Peter Eriksson harshly criticizes how Gustav Fridolin and Åsa Romson ran the Green Party election campaign in 2014.

He questions promises never to harm the possibility of refugees reaching Sweden and that the coal from Vattenfall would remain in the ground.

– That was a mistake from start to finish, says Eriksson in My Truth from SVT.

Peter Eriksson was the Green Party spokesperson from 2002 to 2011, and had been Minister of State for four years when he resigned in December 2020. On Sunday night’s My Truth on SVT2, he candidly tells presenter Anna Hedenmo about his almost 30 years in politics. .

Hedenmo shows images from the November 2015 press conference in which then-spokesperson Åsa Romson tearfully announces the party’s withdrawal on the refugee issue. Eriksson then claims that the promise during the 2014 election campaign that “we will never hurt the opportunity for refugees to come to Sweden” was too definitive and conceited.

– You shouldn’t make such promises, because you don’t know how the world is changing, says Eriksson.

Photo: LOTTE FERNVALL

Peter Eriksson.

Hedenmo refers to Gustav Fridolin’s lump of coal in the 2014 election campaign and the spokesman’s promise that the Vattenfall coal would remain in the ground if the Green Party ended up in government. Eriksson comments on the lump of coal and the fact that Vattenfall sold the mines after the elections:

– That was a mistake from start to finish. The German states where the mines were located had legislation on their side. If Vattenfall had stopped this, they would have taken over the mines. We did not have the concrete opportunity to do this.

“Eating meat and hunting cannot be a problem in MP”

A major reason that Greta is doing so well and the Green Party so poorly is the moralism of party representatives, which is sometimes purely repressive, says Peter Eriksson. He gives an example: Environmentalists in big cities see themselves as better people because they are vegan or vegetarian:

– It has not been recognized in the countryside, among people who live close to nature and depend on the car. It cannot be demanded that they live as the young people of the big cities do. It is also not reasonable. Eating meat, hunting, being part of nature and the countryside, cannot be a problem in the Green Party.

Peter Eriksson reveals on the SVT program that the then leader of the People’s Party, Lars Leijonborg, was close to becoming prime minister in 2002:

– When Göran Persson and the Social Democrats were unwilling to meet us as equals, there was a discussion about a central government with Lars Leijonborg as possible prime minister. We were almost done with a statement from the government when the Center Party left.

Eriksson describes the relationship with Prime Minister Göran Persson (S) during the 2002-2006 term as “a war”, and states that Persson would have preferred to form a government with the Christian Democrats, which was then led by Alf Svensson:

– Your best option would have been the Christian Democrats, I know. Göran Persson was quite conservative and once also had a dream of becoming a priest.

Published: February 14, 2021 at 08:03