What Sweden’s political crisis says about Europe’s collapsing centre

Nooshi Dadgostar is Sweden’s new political star. A young, softly spoken politician with Iranian immigrant parents and an unfinished degree in law, she became the leader of the Vansterpartiet (‘Left party’) late last year — taking over from Jonas Sjöstedt, a bleeding-heart version of Jeremy Corbyn who struggled to shake off the party’s communist past. Most of her predecessors have tried but failed to become a central part of the national political conversation. But this week, she succeeded: by taking out the Swedish Prime Minister. If he tinkered with rent controls, she said, she’d topple him with a vote of no confidence.

She was as good as her word. Stefan Löfven is the first Swedish leader in history to lose a confidence vote and he now has two options: to build a new coalition or call another general election.

It’s a problem that speaks to a wider theme: the fragility of the political centre in European politics.