Jacob Christensen

This story keeps getting better – or worse, depending on your point of view. If we have civil servants who will come forward and a) say that they have received direct instructions to decide applications for Danish citizenship by stateless refugees against the rules and b) have taken notes or kept a diary, then we have the figurative smoking gun or perhaps even blockbuster bomb on our hands.

Question 1: Will there be an inquest?

Obviously, the government is not interested in an inquest and neither is the Danish People’s Party. The four opposition parties will need to convince Liberal Alliance and all the independent MPs to join them to secure a majority before an election, so given a victory for the opposition in the coming election we should probably not expect an inquest to be set up until after the election.

But being as this is politics, Birthe Rønn Hornbech may have reason to ask herself if she feels lucky.

Question 2: What will this mean in the electoral campaign?

I doubt that it will have a major impact. Politically, Rønn Hornbech is a spent force and in the overall context of refugee and integration policy, I expect that the views voters hold about Palestinians are more important that references to international conventions.