The Labour-affiliated trade union is inviting participants to a debate on how to “stop the Progress Party (FrP)” and has enlisted experts on the “far Right”. One of the panellists previously helped raise money for a designated terrorist organisation.
During Arendalsuka in August, the Norwegian Union of Commerce and Office Employees (HK Norge) is organising a debate entitled “How to Stop the Progress Party (FrP)?”. In its invitation, the union states that the Progress Party (FrP) “will dismantle the Working Environment Act, increase inequality and does not take the climate crisis seriously”.
The organiser makes it clear that this is not intended as an exchange of views:
“We have not invited the Progress Party (FrP) or its youth wing (FPU). This meeting is not about discussing matters with them, but about how we are going to stop them.”
To shed light on the threat posed by the “far Right”, HK Norge has invited two experts. One is Trine Østereng from the Agenda think tank (Tankesmien Agenda). The other is the Swedish-Iranian author and politician Ali Esbati.
Led youth organisation that raised money for a designated terrorist group
Esbati led Ung Vänster (Young Left) – the youth organisation of Sweden’s Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) – from 2001 to 2004. During his tenure, the organisation publicly defended the PFLP, the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by both the EU and the United States.
The Left Party has a highly radical past, having been known simply as the Communists (Kommunisterna) until 1990.
Esbati rejected the idea that the PFLP should be designated a terrorist organisation and compared the group to the resistance movements in the Nordic countries during the Second World War. According to him, designating the PFLP as a terrorist organisation while speaking about peace in Palestine amounted to “hypocrisy and sabotage”.
The same organisation was behind the slogan: “Break the law – support the PFLP.”
Esbati is also known for having been on Utøya and has published a personal book about his experiences there.
“Israel is a racist apartheid state”
In a 2003 press release from Ung Vänster, it was stated that it was “a bad joke to regard the State of Israel as a democracy”, and that “Israel is a racist apartheid state”.
Esbati has also made no secret of his criticism of the system at home. As leader of the youth organisation, he called for “a fundamental transformation of society” and the introduction of “an economic system fundamentally different from the one we have today”.
He is also known for the slogan “Rök ut överklassen” – literally, “Smoke out the upper class” – the idea being to challenge the wealthiest neighbourhoods by establishing refugee reception centres in the middle of them, if necessary at Stureplan in Stockholm.
From Klassekampen to the Riksdag
Esbati is no stranger to the Norwegian public sphere. He has served as debate and opinion editor at Klassekampen and headed the left-wing think tank Manifest in Oslo. He was formerly the partner of journalist and former Red Youth (Rød Ungdom) leader Marte Michelet.
From 2014 to 2024, he served in Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, for the Left Party, and from 2022 he was the party’s spokesperson on economic policy. As recently as this spring, he described the Swedish government as “the most fascist in Europe”.
Asked why he no longer describes himself as a communist, Esbati replied that it “has become quite clear that it is a poor way of describing that position”.
Wiborg: “Then they risk agreeing with the Progress Party”
The event has left the Progress Party’s Erlend Wiborg shaking his head. On Instagram, the Member of Parliament offered the political Left his own suggested programme:
Progress Party (FrP) immigration spokesperson Erlend Wiborg has a good laugh about the event.
“It is nice that the Left is spending the summer talking about the Progress Party, even though they ought instead to focus on solving the everyday challenges facing their own members.”
Wiborg’s three points:
- Listen more to ordinary people.
- Stop increasing taxes and duties.
- Take people’s concerns about immigration, public safety and the economy seriously.
“But then they risk agreeing with the Progress Party, so I understand that this could be difficult. Have a great summer,” he writes.