So Denmark has a government again. Mette Frederiksen, after weeks of what the papers call ‘political negotiations’ (read: backroom squabbling and ministerial seat-warming), has cobbled together a deal. The UK, ever the eager lapdog for continental tidiness, has already rolled out the red carpet of diplomatic approval. ‘Stability in a key Northern European ally,’ they coo. How quaint. How utterly predictable.
Let us not pretend this is some Viking saga of heroic statecraft. This is the same old dance of social democrats and centrists, a coalition of convenience held together by the shared fear of losing power. Frederiksen, a woman with the charisma of a particularly stern headmistress, has pulled off a trick that would make Machiavelli yawn: she has promised everyone just enough to keep them quiet. The left gets its welfare hikes; the right gets its immigration curbs. The middle class gets the bill. Hoorah for Danish pragmatism.
But the real question, the one the Foreign Office is too polite to ask, is this: does this government have the spine to face the coming storm? Europe is teetering on the edge of an energy crisis that would make the 1970s look like a picnic. Inflation is gnawing at the foundations of the welfare state. And the Green transition, that great totem of modern politics, is demanding sacrifices that no politician dares name. Frederiksen’s deal, for all its talk of ‘green growth,’ is a masterpiece of procrastination. It kicks the can down the road, past the next election, past the next crisis, until the can becomes a boulder.
Meanwhile, Britain applauds. Because that is what Britain does now: it applauds any sign of order in a world gone mad. We have become the anxious parent, clapping at the toddler who has finally stopped crying. The irony is thick enough to cut with a Viking axe. We, who have spent the last decade ripping ourselves apart over Brexit, who cannot form a government without a psychodrama, are now the arbiters of European stability. It would be laughable if it were not so sad.
Denmark’s deal is not a victory for democracy. It is a victory for inertia. Frederiksen has simply swapped one set of compromises for another. The real battles, over the role of the state, over the meaning of national identity, over the future of the welfare state in a globalised world, these battles remain unfought. So let the UK applaud. Let the diplomats smile. But do not mistake this for anything other than what it is: a pause before the next crisis. And in this age of decay, a pause is the most we can hope for.
