Nina Westad has had a taste of what it is like when “respectable society” comes after you. It is not for the faint-hearted.

When I read the story about Nina Westad, who had to give up her dream of becoming mayor of Trondheim, I was surprised.

Not that the Conservative Party’s national leadership and Secretary-General Tom Erlend Skaug asked her to withdraw.

The party that is supposed to be conservative, but which mirrors the Democratic Party in the United States, has already shown how rigid it is and how little room there is for dissent.

We saw it most recently when Erna Solberg and the party pressured Simen Sandelien into resigning after he had told the truth about violence among transgender people.

So no. That Westad had to go did not surprise me.

What did surprise me, however, was that there are actually still women like Nina Westad in politics in Trondheim, possibly one of the most left-wing and woke cities in Norway.

There, apparently, anything is acceptable when it comes to controversial and hateful statements. Support for Trump, on the other hand, is reason enough to force someone out of what is supposed to be a functioning democracy, where freedom of expression stands above everything else.

It sounds fine on paper.

That is not how it works in the new Norway.

Nina Westad wrote in a statement:

That this should happen in my party, which I joined when I was 15 years old, is something I never dreamed would happen. Despite the fact that I was elected at the nomination meeting in a functioning membership democracy, certain forces within the party have not accepted this.

I share her thoughts.

For years, I saw Norway as a beacon of everything that was good and just. I never thought I would see my homeland become such a malicious, unjust and cold society.

Perhaps my view of Norway was shaped by propaganda from the moment I first saw the light of day.

Nevertheless, Norway was always utopia to me.

It was a lie.

The story of Nina Westad joins the succession of events in a country I now see as heartless and cold. And by that I do not mean ordinary women and men in the streets.

I am talking about “respectable society”, which decides what we should think, do and say, and which determines who should be protected from hateful statements.

For these people, values and ethical guidelines extend only so far, depending on who does what in Trondheim or anywhere else in the country.

Showing support for Trump is the ultimate sin.

Saying that 7 October 2023 was the most beautiful thing that has happened in this century is apparently acceptable.

Not because any Conservative Party members had anything to do with Bassam Hussein’s hateful and terror-supporting rhetoric. But how many of the party leaders publicly condemned his words and demanded that he resign?

As far as I recall, it was the Christian Democratic Party’s Joel Ystebø who took the Hussein case to the Storting, not the Conservative Party.

Perhaps they said something at the local level. But if so, I cannot find it.

And the man who is himself part of this “respectable society”, city council member Karl Erik Haug, Nina Westad’s party colleague, wrote, among other things, on his Facebook page:

Nina Westad is completely unfit to be a mayoral candidate. That is also why I have shared screenshots of private Messenger threads, screenshots I took over the weekend after I was made aware that old messages had been systematically deleted. Much was gone, but by no means all of it. Messages that reveal a view of humanity and attitudes that are completely unacceptable and entirely incompatible with being an elected representative for the Conservative Party.

Karl Erik Haug is Professor of Modern History and Head of the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at NTNU, and Chair of the Board of NUPI.

I have not found any statement from Haug in which he demands that Hussein resign or face similar consequences.

If that is the case, he evidently believes that celebrating the worst terrorist attack against Jews since the Holocaust is entirely acceptable and entirely compatible with being a professor at NTNU.

How many Conservative Party members in Trondheim or elsewhere spoke out when SV, LO and other trade unions harassed American tourists in Trondheim and shouted “MAGA go home”, “no fascists in our streets” and “Let it sink”?

Did anyone from the Conservative Party or Trondheim City Government think of sending the Americans an apology? Or demanding that SV and LO face consequences for what they had done?

Or was this also acceptable and entirely compatible with being elected politicians or Norway’s largest confederation of trade unions?

And did Trondheim City Council think it was acceptable to treat American tourists in this way?

Apparently.

Or what about when they did the same thing to Bevar Norge?

In February 2026, Bevar Norge’s first meeting in Trondheim was held at Misjonskirken. LO, Trondheim Labour Party and left-wing activists demonstrated outside with “no racists in our streets” and “no fascists in our streets” and called the group fascist.

They were threatening enough that the members of Bevar Norge had to sneak out through the back door. Afterwards, Misjonskirken refused to rent its premises to them again.

What about when Document journalist Bente Haarstad was prevented from doing her job at Torget in Trondheim in March 2026?

She tried to cover a public gathering where participants, at an event supported by, among others, LO, AUF, SV, Rødt, NKP, Norsk Folkehjelp and Palestinakomiteen, carried the Iranian regime’s flag and mourned Ayatollah Khamenei.

Activists, including Bassam Hussein, physically removed her. The police asked her to leave, despite the fact that she had a press card.

This is apparently also compatible with being a professor at NTNU.

For were there any Conservative Party politicians, locally or nationally, who publicly came out and said that we cannot tolerate such things in a democratic country where freedom of the press is one of the most important things we have?

I can find no statements from the party that is so concerned with the views of humanity and attitudes of public figures in Norway.

What about the growing antisemitism in Trondheim?

For years, Palestinakomiteen and other Gaza activists have marched through Norwegian streets, including in Trondheim, with slogans such as “from the river to the sea”, “no Zionists in our streets” and “long live the intifada”.

In April 2024, a torch was thrown over the fence at the synagogue. During the same period, the Jewish cemetery at Lademoen was vandalised.

Leaders of the Jewish community say that Jews hide symbols in the streets, that children have been harassed at school, and PST has a heightened threat assessment concerning Jewish targets.

Yes, politicians have spoken out.

But words are empty when actions do not follow.

The Conservative Party’s and the rest of the Storting’s Israel and Palestine policy fuels antisemitism, just as much as the hatred of Jews that comes from certain sections of the population.

Meanwhile, Jews are afraid to walk the streets of Trondheim, as they are in the rest of Norway.

And so it continues.

We could mention hundreds of stories.

There is no need.

These are a few examples showing that something is fundamentally wrong in Norway.

The messages from Nina Westad were private, while all the examples above are actions or statements that have taken place in public, many of them by people in politics and in senior positions.

I wonder what she thinks when she sees the spectacle taking place in the political establishment in Trondheim and elsewhere in the country.

Now she has had a taste of what it is like to be “different” in Norway, the land of difference.

I wish her all the best through the storm.

It is not easy to face the rabid pack that wants to control every single thought, every single word and every action, and decide whom you are allowed to support.

I have contacted Karl Erik Hauge, Tom Erlend Skaug, the Conservative Party in Trondheim and the Conservative Party’s national headquarters with questions about the matters discussed in this commentary.

The enquiry was sent late on Friday afternoon, and no response has yet been received.

There was nevertheless no reason to wait before publishing, as it is not unusual for such enquiries to remain unanswered. If a response is received, the commentary will be updated.