History
Founding and outside the Folketing
On 24 September 2015, architect Pernille Vermund and chemical engineer Peter Seier Christensen announced that they were in the process of establishing a new political party with the working title "We Conservatives" (Vi Konservative),[10][11] but instead settled on the name "Nye Borgerlige".[12] Both founders were former members of the Conservative People's Party for which party Vermund had served as a Helsingør Municipality councilor from the 2009 municipal election until 2011.[12] On 20 October 2015, they launched the party website and published a political program (principprogram).[13] In an interview to B.T. on the same day, Vermund and Seier described their policies as "a mix of the Danish People's Party and the Liberal Alliance" and told that 360 people had joined.[14] The party was founded in response to the then-government's handling of the 2015 European migrant crisis.[15][16][17]
On 21 September 2016, the founders announced that they had gathered the 20,109 signatures – amounting to one 175th of valid votes cast at the previous general election – required to run in the next election. They held their first official press conference in Copenhagen one day later, notably emphasizing the party's three "non-negotiable demands" (ufravigelige krav) as a prerequisite for backing any government; these were a total asylum freeze, eviction of criminal foreigners after their first conviction, and that foreigners staying in Denmark must be able to support themselves.[18] The party's eligibility to run was officially approved by the Ministry of the Interior on 6 October, when the party was assigned its requested election letter D.[19]
On 12 November 2016, Nye Borgerlige held its first annual party conference in Fredericia with about 400 attendees,[20][21] while at the time reporting 2,773 members with nine municipal councillors quickly changed their party affiliation to it.[22] Market research firm Gallup polled in November 2016 and determined that the party would primarily obtain its voters from the Danish People's Party.[23] Running in 61 out of the 98 municipalities during the 2017 local elections, Nye Borgerlige secured 0.9% of the national votes, representing just one out of the 2,432 municipal councilors nationwide - the one awarded to incumbent councilor Mette Thiesen in Hillerød Municipality who had been elected for the Conservative People's Party in the 2013 municipal election.[24]
2019 general election
In the election campaign before the 2019 general election, Nye Borgerlige was unexpectedly challenged by the sudden emergence of the far-right party Stram Kurs, but at the election on 5 June, Nye Borgerlige obtained 2.4% of the vote, equal to four seats, whereby the party acquired representation in the Folketing, whereas Stram Kurs with 1.8% did not surpass the 2% threshold.[25] NB's first parliamentary group consisted of Pernille Vermund (South Jutland), Peter Seier Christensen (Zealand), Mette Thiesen (North Zealand), and Lars Boje Mathiesen (East Jutland).[26] As the majority in Parliament shifted to the left at the election, the leader of the Social Democrats Mette Frederiksen formed the same month a minority government (Frederiksen I) to which Nye Borgerlige would serve as an opposition party.[27]
Early in the election period, the party decided against custom to invest most of its funds in communication and not policy development, in a ratio described as "80/20".[28] Nye Borgerlige gained popularity and became well-known for its successful social media strategy, especially on Facebook.[29][30][31] In February 2021, it became, with officially 18,000 members, the Danish political party with the third highest membership count, succeeded only by the Social Democrats and Venstre.[32] Two years later, however, newspaper accounts questioned the party's official membership counts, quoting several former party activists reporting that they were instructed not to remove people not paying membership fees from the membership lists in order to create a higher membership number.[33][34]
In February 2021, the party got its highest single opinion poll to date, suggesting 11% of the general vote.[35] After its initial support in opinion polls during the election period, the party's popularity started dwindling from early 2021 onwards, and in particular following the launch of a new right-wing populist party named Denmark Democrats with former minister Inger Støjberg as party leader.[36][37] The November 2021 local elections resulted in a nationwide performance of 3.6%, awarding the party 64 seats instead of the previous single one.[38]
In the June 2022 European Union opt-out referendum, Nye Borgerlige campaigned for a no,[39] with 66.9% of voters voting yes.[40]
In August 2022, widespread dissatisfaction among local party members were reported in the media, in particular on Funen and Zealand, because of the centralised decision-making concerning the choice of parliamentary candidates, where the national executive chose the leading candidates regardless of local support. The top management led to defections from local councillors and other party activists.[41][42]
2022 general election and Vermund resignation
At the 2022 general election on 1 November, the party received 3.7% and won six seats as the four original MFs were re-elected in the same constituencies along with Mikkel Bjørn (Funen) and Kim Edberg Andersen (North Jutland).[43] Mette Thiesen left the party on 7 November due to an incident in which her boyfriend had exercised physical violence towards a member of Nye Borgerlige's secretariat, consequently becoming the fastest politician in Danish history to leave the party of their election.[44][45] She would later join the Danish People's Party in February 2023.[46][47]
In the aftermath of the election, Vermund faced internal critique for having made a campaign that was too vague and pragmatic, focusing on an excess of key issues and too little on immigration policy.[37][48] Many party activists were also frustrated by the thorough top management of the party, and in particular the central hand-picking of parliamentary candidates.[37][49]
The press secretary for seven years, Lars Kaaber, was dismissed on 24 November.[50] In December, a new grand coalition majority government headed by Mette Frederiksen consisting of the Social Democrats, Venstre, and the Moderates (the SVM government) took office, to which Nye Borgerlige is serving as opposition.[51][52]
On 10 January 2023, Pernille Vermund issued a statement saying that she would step down as leader at the party's next annual convention and would not run for reelection to the Folketing. Vermund explained her resignation with a desire to get her "life and family back".[53][54]
Most political observers pointed at Lars Boje Mathiesen as her most likely successor as party leader, though some thought that Mikkel Bjørn might also make a bid for the party leadership.[55][56][57] The two were seen as representing the liberal and the national conservative wings in the party, respectively.[58][59]
On 17 January, Boje announced his leadership candidacy, receiving support from the remaining parliamentary group with the exception of Bjørn (and Vermund, who as outgoing chairman had announced that she would abstain from commenting on the choice of her successor).[60] In the end, no other candidates entered the race for chairman, ensuring Boje's unanimous election as party leader[61] on 7 February.[62]
Before that, on 24 January Mikkel Bjørn left Nye Borgerlige for the Danish People's Party, citing internal dissension with Boje and a lack of belief in his abilities to lead.[63] In turn, Boje blamed Bjørn for putting himself before the party,[64] whereas Vermund criticised Bjørn for leaving his post prematurely and taking his seat to another party, having been elected for Nye Borgerlige with the lowest personal number of votes of all the party's parliamentarians.[65] Bjørn's defection was followed by those of the chairman and deputy chairman of the youth wing Nye Borgerliges Ungdom.[59]
Boje as chairman
Besides the election of Boje, the party convention on 7 February 2023 among six aspiring candidates elected local councillor Henriette Ergemann as new political deputy leader by 204 out of the 317 delegates' votes, the former deputy leader Peter Seier Christensen having in January announced his resignation.[66][67] After 13 days, however, Ergemann resigned following criticism of a number of controversial statements by her about COVID-19 vaccines and political opponents.[68] On 6 March, she left the party.[69]
Some commentators predicted that the election of Boje would move the party towards a less pragmatic, less national conservative and more liberal and protest party-like position,[59][70] though Boje himself stated that he would continue the political line of Vermund.[60] However, only 32 days after his election, on 10 March it was announced that the national executive of Nye Borgerlige had, the day prior, unanimously chosen to dismiss Boje as party leader and expel him from the party due to disputes over remuneration and campaign finances.[71][72] Boje would continue in the Folketing as an independent.[73] Following the expulsion of Boje, Vermund conveyed her willingness to once again take over as party leader[74][75] and to run in the next general election.[76]
As a concomitant of Boje's expulsion, the party was set to lose 3.5 million Danish kroner of its public funds, with effect after 12 months.[77]
After Boje
After the expulsion of Boje, the party decided to defer election of a new chairman and political deputy chairman to the next ordinary annual meeting in October 2023. In the meantime, the organisational deputy leader Jesper Hammer together with the other members of the national executive took care of the chairman functions.[78]
The expulsion of Boje led to a further exodus of dissatisfied members. During the week following his expulsion, some 500 members, including several local councillors, left the party. Roughly 2,000 members altogether had left the party since the general election in November.[79] From the local election in November 2021 until March 2023, the party lost 22 out of its 64 municipal council members,[80] including all its representatives in the four biggest cities of Denmark.[d][81][82] Going in the opposite direction, on 13 June Martin Henriksen, a former Danish People's Party MF and current council member of Stevns Municipality, joined Nye Borgerlige.[83] He was later appointed the party's leading candidate for the 2024 European Parliament election.[84]
On 4 April, MF Peter Seier Christensen called in sick with stress, effectively reducing Nye Borgerlige's number of active parliamentarians to two until his return.[e][86][82]
On 10 May, Vermund announced a more pragmatic strategy for the party, which included stopping insisting that NB's three main immigration policy demands were completely non-negotiable. According to Vermund, insisting on having these demands fulfilled as a prerequisite for supporting a right-wing government would not make sense given the parliamentary situation.[86]
Return and second resignation of Vermund
At the annual meeting of the party in October 2023, Vermund was again officially elected chairman.[87] However, on 10 January 2024 Vermund surprisingly announced that she had recommended the dissolution of the party to the party's national executive, and that she and fellow MP Kim Edberg Andersen were as of then without party affiliation in parliament. The reason cited was an abundance of right-wing parties in parliament.[88] The national executive approved the motion and announced that they intended to present a further plan for the dissolution of the party on 27 January 2024.[89] On 16 January the party's parliamentary group was formally dissolved, as all three MPs had left it.[90] Concurrently, many local party activists announced that they intended to continue the existence of the party, some of them pointing to Martin Henriksen as a potential new party leader.[91]
On 17 January, Vermund announced that she had joined Liberal Alliance,[92] whose chairman Alex Vanopslagh had before Christmas privately said that he would welcome her in the Liberal Alliance party, leading to her decision of leaving Nye Borgerlige.[93]
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