Analysis: Loss of prestige for the government when the gang talks break down

It would have been of great symbolic value to the government to establish a broad political settlement on measures against serious crime. After recent shootings and shooting deaths, there is an intrinsic value in political agreement across party borders. For the government, it would have been a feather in the hat to finalize yet another settlement across party borders.

That was not the case now. Instead, the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals jumped off the talks. Nor was the Left Party interested in pursuing an agreement.

Thus, what was pointed out as a broad settlement did not become very broad. Only the Social Democrats, the Environment Party and the Center Party are now behind the list of measures presented by the government on Saturday afternoon.

This is a loss of prestige for the government, but paradoxically does not mean much to the conditions for implementing the proposals. The Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals have already made it clear that they want more far-reaching measures, but that they do not intend to stop any proposals going in their direction.

In this way, the government can be assured that most of the proposals will pass the Riksdag.

However, when and how this should happen is still unclear. Some proposals are already underway, for example that the police should be able to engage in secret data reading. Such a bill is expected shortly and has a majority in the Riksdag. The proposal gives the police the right to access encrypted traffic between the suspect's mobile phones and computers.

Other suggestions are more unclear. For example, the issue of anonymous witnesses should now be investigated. This means that it can take several years for a final bill to end up on the Riksdag table, if it ever does. It is no secret that the government parties and the Center Party are highly suspicious of the proposal to allow anonymous witnesses.

Another controversial issue is the penalty for young people. The Moderates and formerly the Social Democrats have been pushing for this discount on sentenced prison sentences to be abolished. The Environmental Party, on the other hand, is a party that has always opposed the abolition of the penalty discount.

Now the parties have agreed on a compromise which means that this penalty reduction should be abolished in case of repeated and serious crime. It has also accepted the Environmental Party, despite its previous opposition. Other parties, such as the Moderates and the Christian Democrats, on the other hand, maintain that a general demolition must be necessary for the change of law to be effective.

The moderates believe that the government has not sufficiently met the demands of the party and that the only way out was to leave the deliberations. So it may be. The moderates have become increasingly high-profile in matters of law and order and had difficulty accepting anything other than a total negotiating success with the government.

Although the government undoubtedly accepted several of the Moderates' proposals, it was obviously not enough. This is to be understood in today's political context. First, the Moderates are the party that the electorate has the greatest confidence in these matters. Should the party enter into a compromise that is subsequently identified as too watered down, the party risks losing some of its credibility.

Second, the Moderates also compete with the Swedish Democrats for partly the same electoral groups. And SD has not even participated in these discussions. So expect that Jimmie Åkesson and his party friends will not speak the words of this settlement. The moderates want, at least of all, to be on the same page as the Social Democrats in such a debate.

Therefore, that the Moderates jumped off the political talks about gang crime did not come as a big surprise. And when the Moderates left, yes, so did the Christian Democrats and the Liberals. The two parties, which are also trying to profile themselves as tough on crime, did not want to risk being left with the Social Democrats and the Environment Party.

The conclusion of today's message is that the serious crime will continue as a part-conflict issue in Swedish politics, despite the fact that most of the proposals the government today presented will go through parliament.