Judging by how well it fares in the annual UN World Happiness Report, there’s not much rotten in the state of Denmark. It regularly tops the UN chart and while it might feel slightly glib to compare wealthy nations with warzones – why can’t those gloomy Afghans, languishing at 147th, cheer up? – the wider world can’t get enough of those Danish feelgood vibes. This, after all, is the land that gave us hygge, a hard-to-define word translating roughly as ‘cosiness’ – wellness candles, fresh pastries and nights in by the fire.

Many Danes have clearly decided that hygge is not quite compatible with open borders and multi-culturalism

Recently, however, the Danish criteria for national happiness has shifted somewhat – and it doesn’t involve baked apples or alpaca jumpers. In the last ten years, the country has carried out a harsh crackdown on asylum seekers and illegal migration, deeming it a threat to the national way of life. There are now far tougher rules on who can stay, and new ‘parallel society’ laws that forbid neighbourhoods becoming more than 50 per cent non-western.

The measures have been so successful in driving down asylum claims that Britain is seeking to copy them, with new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood despatching a team of officials on a study mission to Denmark last month. Their findings are understood to have inspired much of the immigration reform package she is due to announce today, which will include making asylum claimants wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently.

Mahmood’s decision to go ‘full Danish’ has horrified hard-left Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome – who considers the Danish model ‘undeniably racist’. But others may be doing some handwringing too. The Danes’ new anti-immigration leadership is  prompting some to ask a few questions about hygge as well. Was all that talk about conviviality and shared........

© The Spectator