Sweden’s Social Democrats struggle in traditional blue-collar heartlands

UDDEVALLA, Sweden — The downward slide of the Social Democrats in the Swedish town of Uddevalla arguably started at 1:19 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1986.

With a crash, the mighty gantry crane that had long loomed above the town’s shipyard came down in a plume of dust as thousands of mournful locals watched on. The shipyard was replaced with a Volvo car plant — which itself closed in 2013, taking with it what was left of the town’s industrial heart. 

Support for the Social Democrats, the self-styled party of the workers, has fallen by a third nationally since the day that crane came down, as increased automation and the shift of manufacturing to other countries has eroded blue-collar employment in Sweden.

The party, which has dominated Swedish politics for a century, is now facing an alarming reality in old heartlands like Uddevalla, just over an hour’s drive north of Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast: Blue-collar voters, and those who have come of age since the docklands’ heyday, have begun turning toward the political right for economic answers. 

“All you get with the Social Democrats is higher prices and fewer jobs,” said Elias Abrahamsson, a 21-year-old business student at Uddevalla’s central college. “They just don’t seem to have the right vision,” he said during a break between classes on a recent weekday. 

Center left sinks in Europe

The struggles of Swedish Social Democrats in Uddevalla also underscore a broader challenge facing sister parties across Europe in the wake of a June European Parliament election that saw the party group lose seats for the second time in a row. 

In Finland, the center left lost a national election last year to center-right and far-right opponents, leading popular leader Sanna Marin to step down. Also in 2023, the Socialist Workers’ Party of Pedro Sánchez in Spain saw a similarly poor election result and has been struggling to retain power.

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the German Social Democratic Party will face voters early next year — with current polling suggesting he’s off track to retain the chancellery. 

In a worrying precedent for Scholz, the Swedish center right under Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson won national power from the Social Democrats in 2022 only with the backing of the far-right Sweden Democrats — a party long ostracized by mainstream parties due to its neo-Nazi roots and hard-line stance on immigration. 

In Uddevalla, the Sweden Democrats were more popular than Kristersson’s Moderates in 2022, with its local leader Martin Pettersson replacing a Social Democrat mayor. 

“We have won the hearts and trust of the voters and the trust of the other parties on the political right,” Pettersson said in an interview with POLITICO in his office overlooking the old docklands. “We see ourselves as being at the beginning of a long-term period of political stability.” 

Declining dominance in Sweden

The Swedish Social Democrats emerged as a political force in the early 20th century as standard-bearers for workers’ rights against a powerful business-owning elite. 

The party advocated a strong role for unions in a groundbreaking collective-wage bargaining system with employers, which by mid-century had laid a solid foundation for an economic boom. 

A raft of highly successful companies — from trucking blue chips Volvo and Scania to paper-making behemoth SCA to world-leading telecom player Ericsson — helped make Sweden one of the richest countries in the world. 

The Social Democrats rode this wave from the 1930s to the 1980s, winning more than 40 percent of the vote at every election and governing almost continuously. In the wake of a deep financial crisis in the 1990s, they lost their grip on power twice.

Now, amid bleak prospects for manufacturers across Europe in the face of competition from China, the Swedish Social Democrats find themselves in opposition again as younger voters and workers have turned away.  

Exit polling from the 2022 election showed the Moderates were most popular with voters aged 18 to 21, at 26 percent, with Sweden Democrats second at 22 percent.  

At the same time, the share of blue-collar workers who voted for the Sweden Democrats in 2022 rose to 29 percent — just below the Social Democrats’ tally of 32 percent.

In 2022, the far-right Sweden Democrats was the most popular party overall in the paper-making centers of Lilla Edet and Munkedal, neighboring municipalities to Uddevalla.

Bid for comeback

While Uddevalla Mayor Pettersson said he has supported the Sweden Democrats his entire adult life, some of his colleagues are defectors from the Social Democrats. 

Sweden Democrats lawmaker Magnus Persson, a scaffolder by trade who now heads the Swedish parliament’s labor market committee, said he grew disillusioned with the Social Democrats after what he saw as their failure to protect Swedish builders from cheaper rivals moving in from abroad.  

“We didn’t think it was our party anymore,” he told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. 

But over recent months, a plan by the Social Democrats to fight back in their old heartlands has begun to emerge.

In late August, leader Magdalena Andersson spoke to party faithful in the industrial hub of Sandviken, northeast of Uddevalla, calling for a fair deal for workers. 

“When you contribute according to your ability, when you work and pay taxes, then you should be able to live a good life,” she said. 

Days later, 11 Social Democrat working groups passed along 200 policy ideas to Andersson, marking the end of the initial stage of the party’s first policy platform reboot in a decade. 

Ideas for the workers included replacing the current network of job centers with a new authority, as well as focusing on vocational teaching and expanding apprenticeships. 

In mid-November, the party published the draft of a new party program including a heavy focus on job opportunities and a living wage. Andersson will present the new platform at a party conference in the spring. 

For now, optimism about the reboot was hard to find in Uddevalla.

The student, Abrahamsson, is among voters yet to be won over. “I voted for the right last time — and unless something radical changes, I’ll do the same again.”