Left-Green MP Resigns From Party Over Government’s Handling Of Refugee Family Case

Rósa Björk Brynjólfsdóttir, (now formerly) an MP for the Leftist-Green Party and long a critic of the policies of both her party and the ruling coalition, has resigned from the parliamentary party, Kjarninn reports. The last straw, in her words, was the government not doing anything to prevent the deportation of a family of six, including four young children.

The family in question, whose whereabouts are now unknown, are technically protected from deportation due to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iceland encoded into law years ago. Despite some strong words from Prime Minister and Leftist-Green chair Katrín Jakobsdóttir on the matter, ultimately the government opted not to intervene and to let the deportation move forward as scheduled.

As such, Rósa Björk says, she saw no other choice than to leave the party, “and take a position against the Icelandic government deporting children and families with children. In the three years that the Leftist-Greens have been in the government, little to nothing has been done to create a new policy regarding immigrants and asylum seekers, or to follow the human rights platform of the part, which the government nonetheless promised. I am very disappointed.”

Rósa Björk has very often been critical of the ruling coalition and the party itself, even from the inception. She and Andrés Ingi Jónsson—another Left-Green MP, who also left the party, last December, and also over immigration issues—were the only two MPs in that party to be against forming a coalition with the Independence Party and the Progressive Party in 2017.

As it stands now, the ruling coalition now comprises 33 seats of Parliament’s 63 total seats.

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