The Danish minister for integration, immigration and housing, Inger Støjberg, is no stranger to controversy. However, her latest move seems to have been a little too much to swallow – even for her own Venstre party comrades.
On Tuesday afternoon on her Facebook page, Støjberg put up a picture of herself holding an elaborately decorated cake with the number 50 prominently displayed.
In her post, she explained this was to celebrate the fact that the government has now managed to pass 50 laws tightening up various areas of immigration law.
Not hungry
Not everyone feels like celebrating, though. In a Twitter post responding to a question as to whether he was going to eat a piece, Venstre’s citizenship spokesman, Jan E Jørgensen, indicated he did not share her views by tweeting “I’m on a diet”.
Other commentators seemed to agree with him. Rasmus Hedegaard said “it’s a pretty odd thing to celebrate. Try substituting ‘foreigner’ with ‘equality’, ‘education’, ‘justice’, ‘growth’ … It sounds a bit hollow and smells of pandering to groups of voters who usually belong to other parties.”
Jakob Lindell Ruggaard responded that “something is really wrong when you can get good publicity for yourself by making life difficult for refugees and immigrants”.
A force to be reckoned with
The minister will probably have the last laugh though, as within the first hour, the picture had received more than 5,000 reactions on Facebook and 600 comments. Clearly a case of ‘no publicity is bad publicity’. In December 2016, Støjberg topped Politiken’s list of the most influential commentators on the media landscape in Denmark.
Coincidentally, Støjberg will probably be tucking into some more cake tomorrow as she celebrates her birthday. She’s turning 44.
