farageflagAt half past four yesterday afternoon Mattias Karlsson, the temporary leader of Sweden’s far right Sweden Democrats, caused a political shockwave as he revealed to the press that he and his colleagues would block the sitting left-wing government’s budget.Just months after winning a record 12.9 per cent of the vote, the populist party have found themselves kingmakers in high-stakes game of political roulette by backing the  opposition Conservative-Liberal Alliance for Sweden against the minority Social Democrat and Green coalition. By doing what nobody thought they would ever dare they have gone from being a maligned outsider party to populist crusaders intent on wreaking as much havoc as possible.

Although UKIP have their roots in euroscepticism and the Sweden Democrats in far-right ethnic nationalism, the two parties are riding the same wave of discontent with the political establishment across Europe. Sharing a European Parliament group and with a series of skeletons in their respective cupboards, the Sweden Democrats have succeeded in doing what UKIP have long aspired to – to reach a point at which they can topple governments and push their agenda of reduced immigration and an end to the perceived domination of political correctness and a liberal urban elite.

What happens now in Sweden is hard to say, but it provides a window into what might await the UK after next May. Sweden’s eight party system is a result of the country’s proportional voting system, but even in Westminster it is foreseeable that Labour could win a minority of seats and yet remain the biggest party, facing off against the remaining Liberal Democrats, UKIP, a reduced Conservative party and however many MPs they Greens might muster as they continue their slow march upward.

The idea that liberal Sweden would come to a point where a openly xenophobic party could be in a position of relative power was until now almost unthinkable. Even after the right-wing surge in September’s elections, there was an assumption that the traditional parties of the right would cooperate with the government rather than turn towards the Sweden Democrats.

Although there is no official partnership, the Alliance for Sweden has used the Sweden Democrats to put pressure on the progressive coalition without lifting a finger.The idea that the Conservatives, undone by UKIP at the polls but still unable to cooperate with Labour, should act similarly is not a completely unrealistic prospect. Carl Bildt, the former Swedish foreign minister, was quick to welcome the Sweden Democrat’s decision, immediately tweeting that it would allow a budget that was best for the country.

One of the potential outcomes of the far-right’s power play in Sweden is that a new minority centre-right government is formed and none of the policies produced by the Red-Green coalition to tackle the welfare and public spending cuts made by the Alliance for Sweden come to fruition. As yet nobody is talking about new elections, but Nigel Farage will be looking at his European partners’ very closely and dreaming about what might be possible come next summer.