Juha Ristamäki
Beneath the turmoil of the anti-racism campaign, the big issue of work-based immigration is simmering in the government, writes Iltaleh’s Juha Ristamäki.
Prime Minister Orpo at the opening of the anti-racism campaign on Tuesday. Fanni Uusitalo, Government Office
First, racism rocked basic Finns and the entire government in the summer of 2023. As a result, the government published a statement from the Government, which also included the launch of an anti-racism campaign. The whole government committed to this, so that the uproar could be put aside little by little.
On Tuesday morning in the Little Finland meeting rooms in Helsinki, the campaign in question was spectacularly kicked off under the leadership of the Prime Minister.
Through the Commitment2050 online service, the “We talk with actions” campaign invites organizations to fight against racism with concrete means.
Riikka Purra, the chairperson of Perussuomalaiset, took action immediately and announced at the party’s summer meeting in Kouvola that Perussuomalaiset as a party is unlikely to participate in the campaign.
Of course, Purra also reiterated that Perussuomalaiset has committed to the communication approved last year, on the basis of which a program of measures has been drawn up and an anti-racism campaign has now been launched.
But the commotion was ready again.
The political opposition will make sure that in the fall it will be heard from every corner that Perusfinlomaiset will not commit to the anti-racism campaign.
Prime Minister Orpo has and will have to explain.
It is very difficult for the Prime Minister to credibly tell why the government’s second largest party is not participating in the government’s campaign as a party. The opposition will tell the whole nation “how weak leader Orpo is”.
However, Orpo will swallow this because he wants to keep his government together so that it can complete its adjustment and labor market measures. So Orpo does not engage in an open battle with basic Finns.
The Basic Finns know this and that’s why they ride with two strollers.
PS’s ministerial and parliamentary group are committed to the anti-racism campaign, but the party is not.
It is a message to the party’s voters that even though the party in the government has had to commit to the campaign, it still has strong reservations about the campaign.
Basic Finns feel that the concept of racism has been expanded so much that political measures to curb immigration are also being subsumed under it. Criticizing and opposing immigration is the hard core of PS, and it cannot be undermined by any campaigns.
The action of the opposition parties in terms of participating in the racism campaign then has its own chapter. Both the SDP and the Greens have announced that they will not participate in the campaign because it is “polishing the government’s reputation” and it “washes the government’s hands of racism”.
The logic is a bit difficult to understand. SDP and the Greens therefore do not want to support anti-racism measures, because the initiator of these anti-racism measures is the wrong party.
Under the turmoil of the anti-racism campaign, the big issue of work-related immigration is simmering in the government.
RKP chairman Anders Adlercreutz outlined at the summer meeting of the party’s parliamentary group that more work-based immigration is needed in Finland. According to Adlercreutz, immigration registrations should be renegotiated as early as next week’s budget meeting.
Basic Finns dismissed Adlercreutz’s opening of raising net immigration to an annual level of 40,000 as “completely impossible”, and the coalition is not warming up to the numerical goal either.
The governing parties do not have a common view on how much and what kind of work-related immigration they are trying to attract to Finland.
Recently, employee residence permits have been granted mostly to the cleaning industry, industry, and care and health services, not to highly educated professionals. At the same time, we have widespread unemployment of more than 400,000 people.
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