“We have this perception that critics of immigration are populists or the unwashed masses and that enlightened people support immigration,  but in Sweden today, it is the complete opposite. The more evidence-driven you are, the more well-read you are, the more anti-immigration you are.”

So he feels trapped between two uncompromising groups: “Either they are racists — but there are very few of them at the end of the day — or they are pro-immigration. They are the ones with the know-nothingism and they scream and shout and they shut down debate.”

If the Swedish establishment is set on defeating the far-Right, it could start by taking seriously the challenge of building a successful, integrated multi-racial society. The elephant in the room in the immigration debate is the socio-economic outcomes of those who have already settled in Sweden. According to Statistics Sweden, 50 per cent of refugees are not in work seven years after arriving in the country. Even after 15 years, 40 per cent are still without a job. The unemployment rate for immigrants is more than two and half times that of native Swedes, the second biggest gap in the OECD. The skills gap between adults born abroad and adults born in Sweden is bigger than anywhere else in the OECD.

A recent documentary, The Swedish Theory of Love, written and directed by Erik Gandini, which explores the problem of loneliness in Swedish society, offers clues to the root of the integration problem. The film is a wide-angle snapshot of a country in which people increasingly live alone, have children alone and die alone, a country in which “help is supplied solely through official channels. You don’t cry on someone’s shoulder, you fill out a form.” Gandini follows officials from a distressingly large government agency dedicated to tracking down the next of kin of those who die alone (one in four Swedes), sometimes discovered long after their death in a flat no one — neighbours, relatives, friends — has thought to call on.

To consider what this society looks like to outsiders “for whom Sweden is seen as a promised land . . . a country worth taking great risks for”, he follows Nhela, a Syrian immigrant who teaches Swedish to new arrivals. “Swedes love short answers,” she tells a group of bemused students from more gregarious cultures in Africa and the Middle East. She tells them that when a Swede asks, “How are you?” they should just reply, “Fine.” She adds: “No need to go on any longer.” They should answer questions with a yes or a no — no discussions. Her students tell her they don’t see the point of these classes. “I never get to meet any Swedes,” they tell her.

One of the victims of Sweden’s failed integration policies is Rosengard, a suburb of Malmo built in the 1960s as part of the Miljonprogrammet — the Social Democrat government’s drive to build a million new homes in a decade. What was designed as a social democratic utopia has become an economic sinkhole. Eighty-six per cent of Rosengard’s residents are immigrants or the children of immigrants. The countries they come from reflect Sweden’s generous refugee policy: in 2010, the four largest groups of foreign-born residents were from Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and Somalia. Less than half of Rosengard’s residents work, crime levels are high, the quality of the housing is deteriorating and educational standards are slipping further behind those of the rest of Malmo.