Mikkel Bjørn

Mikkel Bjørn Sørensen (born 19 October 1995) is a Danish politician and schoolteacher who since January 2023 has been a member of the Folketing for the Danish People's Party (DF). He joined the Nye Borgerlige (NB) political party in 2016 and served from that year until 2021 as the first national chairman of its youth wing. At the 2022 general election in November, he was elected a member of the Folketing for the NB but left it in January to join the DF. Before entering politics, he taught history, Danish, social studies and Christianity in the Danish folkeskole. Growing up near Juelsminde in Jutland, Bjørn now lives in Nyborg on Funen.

Mikkel Bjørn
Mikkel Bjørn in 2023
Member of the Folketing
Assumed office
1 November 2022
ConstituencyFunen
National chairman of Nye Borgerliges Ungdom
In office
8 October 2016 – 16 October 2021
Succeeded byMalte Larsen
Personal details
Born (1995-10-19) 19 October 1995
Rårup, Denmark
Political partyDanish People's Party (from 2023), Nye Borgerlige (2016–2023)
Alma materJelling Seminarium
OccupationPolitician, schoolteacher
Websitehttps://mikkelbjorn.dk/

Personal life

Mikkel Bjørn was born on 19 October 1995 in Rårup, a village in Hedensted Municipality close to the town of Juelsminde and the city of Horsens.[1] He went to As Friskole and graduated from Horsens Statsskole in 2014 with a studentereksamien (high school diploma).[2] Growing up in Rårup, Bjørn moved to the town of Jelling in 2016 to attend teacher education there at Jelling Seminarium,[3] wherefrom he graduated in 2020.[4] In a 2023 interview with Berlingske, Bjørn stated that he looked back on his childhood with great nostalgia, thanking his parents for "raising me and my brother – and giving us countless good experiences during our upbringing".[5]

Local newspaper Fyens Stiftstidende featured in April 2022 that Mikkel Bjørn at the time lived with his girlfriend in the Jutlandic city of Randers.[6] Bjørn stated during the 2022 election campaign his ambition to move from Randers to Funen should he be elected to the Folketing.[7] This he was, and consequently fulfilled, as he shortly after moved to Nyborg, the island's easternmost settlement.[8]

Youth politics

Young Conservatives

In 2014, Mikkel Bjørn joined the Young Conservatives (KU), the youth wing of the Conservative People's Party (DKF), where he became local chairman for KU Vejle.[9]

On Monday, 21 March 2016, news outlets reported the rise of division within the organisation caused by the expulsion of certain members leading up to its national council (landsråd) held during the weekend.[10][11][12] Newly elected KU leader Andreas Weidinger, who himself had been expelled from his local KU association for backing the expulsions, stated they were due to the members having "campaigned for other parties" as well as harsh rhetoric.[13][14]

On the same day, Bjørn published an article in Årsskriftet Critique, where he stated that he was among the three members in question and presented his explanation; according to Bjørn, the expulsions were because he, in a poll on an internal member forum, had indicated that we would vote for another party than the DKF, which had been interpreted as equivalent to campaigning by the KU's executive committee (forretningsudvalg).[15][16] After Bjørn's election to the Folketing in 2022, the harsh rhetoric was reported to primarily have concered remarks about the 2015 European migrant crisis.[17]

Nye Borgerliges Ungdom
Mikkel Bjørn during the NBU's national conference in Vejle, 2019

In October 2016, Mikkel Bjørn was elected the first chairman of Nye Borgerliges Ungdom (NBU).[18] During his time as youth leader, he led his organisation through three so-called school elections in 2017, 2019 and 2021 with the NB gaining 1.4%, 1.5% and 3.6% of the vote at each of those elections, respectively. From 2016 until 2022, he held a position in the NB's national committee (hovedbestyrelse).[4]

In the 2017 local elections, Bjørn ran for Nye Borgerlige in Vejle Municipality, where he received 33 personal votes, but the party failed to win representation in any but one municipality.[19][20] At the NB's first general election in June 2019, Bjørn gained 46 personal votes as a candidate in South Jutland, while Pernille Vermund won the sole NB seat in that constituency as one of four NB seats nationwide.[21][3] Following a 2020 documentary by TV 2 regarding sexist cultures within Danish youth parties, Mikkel Bjørn rejected, as the only youth party leader, the presence of such issues within his organisation.[22] In October 2021, he was succeeded as youth leader by Malte Larsen.[18]

Political career

Nye Borgerlige
Nye Borgerlige's parliamentary group at Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen in 2022. L-R: Peter Seier Christensen, Lars Boje Mathiesen, Pernille Vermund, Kim Edberg Andersen and Mikkel Bjørn

In April 2022, Mikkel Bjørn was appointed as Nye Borgerlige's lead candidate on Funen for the up-coming general election.[6] In an interview with Danish men's magazine Euroman during the campaign, Bjørn explained that he i 2019, unlike this time, had run with no ambition to be elected, having been occupied writing his bachelor's degree.[7] At the 2022 general election, Mikkel Bjørn was elected a member of the Folketing with 888 personal votes as one of six MPs for Nye Borgerlige.[23] From winning election to the Folketing until his party exit, he served as deputy chairman for Nye Borgerlige's parliamentary group.[4] On 5 January, he took the title of chairman of the Naturalisation Committee (Indfødsretsudvalget).[24] Addressing his appointment, he, for instance, said:[25]

"Of course, I will draw on all the experiences we have when granting a citizenship, because I see the citizenship as an investment that we elected representatives can make on behalf of the Danes [...] Therefore, I think we must have a presumption and expectation that when we give citizenship, it is to the benefit of Denmark and our society as a whole".

Following Nye Borgerlige leader Pernille Vermund's announcement to resign on 10 January 2023, several political commentators anticipated Mikkel Bjørn and Lars Boje Mathiesen to be the two main contestants in the up-coming leadership election, although neither had announced their intention to run.[26][27][28][29][30] At an extraordinary meeting in the party's national committee on 17 January, it was decided that the new leader would be elected at an extraordinary annual convention on 7 February in addition to Boje announcing his candidacy. It was further announced that the candidacy proclamation deadline would be 24 January.[31][32][33]

Danish People's Party
Danish People's Party's parliamentary group in 2023. L-R: Peter Kofod, Pia Kjærsgaard, Mikkel Bjørn, Nick Zimmermann, Alex Ahrendtsen, Mette Thiesen and Morten Messerschmidt

On 24 January, Mikkel Bjørn left Nye Borgerlige and simultaneously joined the Danish People's Party, citing internal dissension with Boje and a lack of belief in his abilities to lead.[34][35][36] Additionally, he asserted that he had been threatened with expulsion if he had not, within two hours, stated his support for Boje's candidacy.[37][38]

The chairman of the DF, Morten Messerschmidt, welcomed him, stating, "Mikkel Bjørn is an excellent and conservatively nationally rooted politician who has God, king and fatherland tattooed right into his heart".[34] NB youth wing leader Malte Larsen and deputy youth leader Mitchel Oliver Vestergaard also left the party that day and both joined the DF during February.[34][39][40] As Boje was elected leader of Nye Borgerlige in February, he would be dismissed from office and expelled from the party the following month,[41][42] in which context Bjørn commented that he would remain in the DF.[43]

Three days after his exit, Bjørn, while continuing as chairman of the Naturalisation Committee, received his first Danish People's Party spokemanship in which areas he represents the DF in the Folketing. These were culture, media, ecclesiastical affairs, gender equality, Nordic cooperation and naturalisation.[44] Bjørn described the areas as "enormously exciting" and "close to my heart".[45] On 6 February, former Nye Borgerlige MP Mette Thiesen also joined the DF, having been an independent since November 2022.[46][47]

Political positions

Mikkel Bjørn has been characterised as staunchly national conservative by analysts before, during and after his eventual departure from the NB, identifying him as opposed to Lars Boje's liberal fraction.[48][26][49][28][50] Within the KU, he was cited as an affiliate of the national conservative "White Wing" (Hvid Fløj).[51][52]

Bjørn has called for reduced political interference in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Denmark (Folkekirken).[53] He supports the church's constitutional status as the official church of the Kingdom of Denmark and has called for increased focus on the church in religious education.[54] With regard to gender politics, Bjørn has depicted modern feminism as "a cancerous tumour on society",[55] besides criticism of drag queen shows performed before children as sexualising.[56] He has self-described himself as an ardent royalist and supports Denmark leaving the European Union.[2][3][57]

Mikkel Bjørn credited in April 2023 former DF politicians Søren Krarup and Jesper Langballe as sources of political admiration, along with English philosopher Roger Scruton.[5] Asked at the same occasion what it would be if he could change one thing in Danish society, Bjørn replied, "Mitigate the consequences of the liberal immigration law of 1983. Many bad things have happened in the wake of that law. Terror, parallel societies, social control, cultural disintegration tendencies, relatively heightened crime and so on".[5]

References
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  2. Mogensen, Knud (9 March 2021). "Portræt: NBU-landsformand med royalt sindelag". Horsens Folkeblad. Archived from the original on 14 May 2023. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  3. Baun, Leif (22 March 2016). "22 og år folketingskandidat: Lærerstuderende fra Jelling vil i folketinget". Vejle Amts Folkeblad. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  4. "Mikkel Bjørn (DF)". Folketinget. 2 February 2023. Archived from the original on 13 May 2023. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
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