Sylvi Listhaug’s Political Transformation: From Provocateur to Mainstream Leader

Before becoming a party leader, Sylvi Listhaug was an inspirational politician. She kept making comments that could not be eaten and that created a bad atmosphere in the civil partnership, and that was too much food for the more sensitive part of the right.

That time is over.

Given the choice between being a narrow party on the extreme right or a broad party that can eat from the Right’s cake, Listhaug seems to be going for the latter.

Her speech to the National Assembly was so recognizable as FRPsk that Siv Jensen could have been delivered. Nothing new here.

Drill drill baby. Zero growth in the cities is BILHAT. Taxes and taxes must be set down, not up. Ban cousin marriage.

Everything is traditional Frp. The provocateur is gone. We’ve heard of the “Swedish situation” before.

Listhaug’s only demand for the Conservative Party was that taxes and fees should be reduced. Is it possible to reduce the list?

The danger of making yourself eat for everyone is that it becomes uninteresting and boring. Can Listhaug so pale and toothless win elections?

She has been a master at getting the party’s attention. She will have a real problem with that on the safe path she has now put herself on. Too tame and anemic, too little new, I would think.

If it wasn’t for Velle and Wara.

Read also: Velle & Wara: – Oslo is full of FRP-ers

A party like the FRP is dead dependent on individuals, and former Justice Minister Tor Mikkel Wara and FpU leader Simen Velle came in from the sidelines this week. They want first and second place on the parliamentary list in Oslo, and the county team doesn’t know what they prefer if they don’t let them have their way.

Velle made sure to make a big splash in this autumn’s school elections, and is the new wine any party could want. He also has the ability to mock the left, thereby placing himself in the middle of the political debate.

Wara is hardly called the old wine. He continues to make great strides on the right, and is a sharp astrologer that the FRP obviously needs.

He is also obviously Velle’s great hero and role model.

These two do not belong to the conservative part of the FRP. Per-Willy Amundsen and Christian Tybring-Gjedde have been prominent spokesmen for that wing, and both are out now.

Does this mean that the FRP can move in a more liberal direction in the future?

It’s not necessary. There is little indication that the FRP intends to significantly reduce the welfare state or save more than an oil kroner.

But it certainly means wider, and clearer voices that have issues other than immigration as their main issues.

Listhaug didn’t talk much about immigration in his speech to the national convention. The majority of refugees coming to Norway are now Ukrainians, and she was clear in her support for their struggle.

So it’s hardly time to talk out loud about closing the borders.

It will be interesting to follow what wording the FRP chooses in the integration policy in the future. Harsh rhetoric obviously scares away potential voters. This applies particularly to the immigrant population in the big cities, where the car-friendly People’s Party (formerly FNB – Folkeaksionen no to more tolls) has been reasonably successful.

Listhaug paints a grim picture of how things are in Norway with today’s “socialist” government. It is also the responsibility of the opposition to pick everything that goes wrong. Unfortunately, negativity often works well in elections.

But another thing that Simen Velle was successful in doing was in the school selection. He managed to give hope to school children.

The hope he gave may have been based on false premises, but that applies strictly to many in politics.

It’s hard for young people to have faith in the future when the threat of climate hangs over them, and all the news from abroad is war and death. Velle designed a future especially for young boys who could think.

Listhaug’s doomsday story needs a slightly more optimistic ending. Maybe he will find in the liberal religion in the future. Her job is to stitch the slightly different stories together.