Apparently The Danish People's Party is Really, Really Popular

According to ​a new opinion poll, the Danish Peop​le's Party (DF) is, for the first time, Denmark's most popular party. The anti-immigration activists saw a massive increase in popularity this year, rocketing from 12.3 percent, all the way up to 21.2 percent. Not far off doubling their figures. That means that if an election was held tomorrow, it'd imaginably be a bit of a landslide for DF. Kristian Thulesen Dahl, leader of DF, attributes the success to an ongoing immigration debate in Denmark.

"I don't think there is any doubt that the asylum debate – that there have come so many of them over the last few months – has clearly affected a lot of Danes' opinion on what should be done in Christiansborg. And DF has a clear opinion in that area," he told TV2.

Wondering if he's being too polite and not giving his colleagues the props they deserve, we thought we'd have a look over some of the other glorious folks that may have helped the Danish People's Party sneak their way into the hearts of the average Dane.

Here's our personal fav's:

Tina Petersen - Former parliament member for the Danish People's Party
Tina Petersen is a Malmø born Danish politician. Having had a little right wing stint in Parliament, she later went on to become Svendborg's city councillor. Poor old Tina got herself into a spot of bother in 2012 when she posted a picture of a woman in a Burka taking the trash out and wrote "hehe ..Don't forget the trash tomorrow ;)))..". Which, let's face it, triple smiley or not, is about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Mogens Camre - Former member of EU parliament for the Danish People's Party
Oh, Mogens, you are a wealth of knowledge for the Danish people. Rarely has a man provided us with such fine-tuned political arguments as good ol' Mogens. Earlier this year,  ​DR compiled a list of some of his more flattering quotes. Our personal favorite being "Muslims should live in Muslimland. And that is not here." It's actually true that Denmark isn't Muslimland. In fact, from what I can gather, there is quite literally no such thing as Muslimland.

Pia Kjærsgaard - Co-founder of the Danish People's Party
Pia, 67, is one of the cofounder's of Danish People's Party and the ​ 2009 winner of Europe's biggest racist. Having recently opted out of the party to pursue a career in middle aged​ modeling, Pia took one triumphant media round to make her feelings about headscarfs very clear. Namely that she feels "enormously provoked by women wearing headscarfs". She didn't, however, care to explain why really. Just kind of left it more open than the last 30 seconds of Sopranos.

Kenneth Kristensen Birth - Former President of Danish People's Party Youth.
As President for the Danish People Party's youth division, Kenneth was a bit of wizard with MS Paint and was really into knocking out posters that sort of predicted the future. He made this one particularly juicy bit of eye candy that depicted Denmark as it was in 2001, three blonde total babes, and what he figured it'd be like ten years later, which was surprisingly two balaclava wearing men swinging the Koran around with blood covered hands. It also boasted that a "multiethnic society offers group rape, violence, forced marriage, oppression of women and gang violence". Well yikes, that doesn't sound well. It wasn't to everyones taste though, and ended up earning him a whopping 14 day suspended jail sentence for racism.

Jens-Christian Stahl - President for Danish People's Party in Kerteminde.
Back in 2006, Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet thought they'd be a bit cheeky, and call up a bunch of Danish People's Party members and ask if it was cool to join the party even if they thought Hitler was a total boss. Christian apparently thought that'd be fine, but best not talk about it.

"I personally don't care, but I never heard this" he told the journalist before inviting him to a summer party. Imaginably a rather Danish affair.

Karin Fink Eriksen - Danish People's Party Candidate in Aarhus
In 2013, Aarhus city candidate Karin Fink Eriken, according to Jyllands Posten, shared a picture on Facebook that read "Not all Muslims are terrorists. Some of them are pedophiles and rapists too." Which she ever so eloquently cleared up by saying that she has plenty of Muslim friends. How can she be racist then? That wouldn't make any sense, now would it?

Ole Wedel - Treasurer for the Danish People's Party in Hundested
Ole Wedel, the Danish People's Party treasurer in Hundested, has had his 15 minutes of fame as a tv personality prior to being super bummed about immigration. Ole was made famous by "Købt til Kærlighed" (Bought for Love), a sort of video diary documenting Danish men's foray into romance that they found in a mail order catalogue. There really isn't much to say about this other than the fact that it's a triumph of modern cinematography.

Peter Vandgaard - Earlier candidate for the Danish People's Party.
30 years ago, Fredun Khdavandegar fled from Iran to Denmark. At some point after that, he thought it'd be a mad laugh to change his name to Peter Vandgaard and run for election for the Danish People's Party. This shift in politics, religion and lifestyle hasn't been easy for Peter or those around him. One time it unfortunately cost him a beating with a basketball bat, according to a DR interview.

Given their track record, it's unlikely that DF will refrain from spouting all manner of speculative and fantastic pieces of political gold in the future. Election time is fast approaching and it will be interesting to see if their current popularity standing will remain.