Ten years ago, Denmark passed a law allowing authorities to confiscate and sell valuables brought in by asylum seekers.

It prompted public disgust, forcing the Danes to ensure that items with sentimental value, at least, such as wedding rings, would not be sold off by the police for a few kroner and populist grins.

And, today, Denmark’s ‘socialist’ prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, is doing her best to mimic the far right on migration in order to cling to power, following a tricky election on 24 March, which saw her cobble together a minority-coalition government.

Two weeks ago, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Italy’s right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni calling for the EU to consider nuclear options after some 80,000 people entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in northern Morocco, including the possible suspension of ‘Schengen Area’ co-operation with Spain.

Over 140 people reportedly died in the attempt to climb or swim into Ceuta, many of whom had first walked from sub-Saharan Africa, in a desperate attempt to build a viable life for them and their loved ones.

One of those who died was a 12-year old girl, according to Moroccan media.

But Frederiksen, who some see as a model EU leader, or the next EU Commission president, shed no tears.

In any case, the vast majority of people had left Ceuta within 48 hours, with the Danish leader later conceding that not. one. single. person from the Spanish enclave had travelled onward to Denmark, despite her knee-jerk alarmism.

The Schengen zone spans 29 countries, guarantees the free movement of some 450 million people, and is seen as a cornerstone of European integration.

But Frederiksen was happy to put all that in jeopardy, just to seek popularity with her 4.3m Danish voters, many of whom have also drunk the anti-immigrant kool-aid on X, et al.

And it’s not just a betrayal of her skin-deep left-wing values – it doesn’t work.

Research proves that aping far-right postures does nothing to guarantee electoral success for centrist parties, according to Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde.

(Frederiksen’s party scored its worst result in elections since 1903 on 24 March, despite her now long-running rightist gymnastics).

Meanwhile, her sister-from-another-mother, Meloni, who has also won EU praise for her statesmanship, vandalised Schengen still further for populist gain, when she imposed border controls on Spain for a month, prompting Spain to do the same to Italy, in a predictable tit-for-tat.

Some 5,000 asylum seekers do still remain in Ceuta, but under Spanish law they will all be shortly expelled, bar a handful of the most needy.

At the same time, EU figures show that overall irregular border crossings fell by 37 percent in the first seven months of 2026, compared to last year.

But Frederiksen and Meloni’s grandstanding are still to see an EU summit on 16 October focus on a migration ‘crisis’, which exists chiefly in their political imaginations.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Frederiksen doubled down on her race-baiting as an example for her EU peers to follow.

Race-baiting

“A few years ago, Denmark stood very much alone in Europe. Now a majority of EU countries support it [on immigration],” she said in a Danish parliament debate on Ceuta last week.

“The problem is that we are threatened both from the outside and now from within, but this is not due to a disagreement between the Danish and Spanish governments; rather, it is due to people with an Islamic background who, unfortunately, do not want an open, free European society,” she said during the parliamentary debate.

Her statement drew no condemnation, despite its naked racism.

Instead, MPs competed on who had the strictest ideas on curtailing irregular migration into a country where asylum applications were, anyway, at an historic low.

Last year, Denmark granted 839 asylum permits.

But even that was too much, said Frederiksen’s immigration minister, Rasmus Stoklund, in a press statement earlier this year: “My main priority is to limit the influx of refugees,” he said.

What influx?