What is the most divisive issue in your country currently?
August 27, 2025
What issue is currently dividing your country?
26 comments
Certainly immigration, I expect you’ll get the same answer from lots of people. Also the gap between the rich and poor.
I think we all know the big two, immigration and wealth imbalance
Those are the big two everywhere
Probably immigration and housing in NL. Or, people will say “immigration”, but they only give their attention to asylum seekers.
Naming one is tough, but every political issues currently is a huge mess, and they are all divisive. It would be impossible to say though which one is the most divisive.
1. **wealth distribution** (specially older gens that got everything, several houses, high pensions.. the median pension is higher than median salary).
2. **inmigration** (particularly illegal inmigration from North of Africa).
3. **housing** (related to point 1)
4. **higher taxes vs. lower taxes** (fiscal policy)
5. **climate change**
a few more like views on cultural topics basically
Spain.
As of right at this moment, one of the absolutely most divisive issues in Sweden is the ongoing large-scale bear hunt. There are a lot of extensive protests against the hunt from environmental and natural protection groups as well as from the general public – at the same time as many hunters and farmers are very strongly in favor of heavily reducing the number of bears. Many hunters have also said that they feel threatened by activists and that activists are sabotaging the hunt. And there was quite a bit of celebration recently when a man was badly injured during an attack from a bear while hunting, with people claiming the bear had every right to defend itself.
There is simply a lot of passionate feelings of both love and hate around the large carnivores in Sweden and this large-scale bear hunt is in turn just part of the extremely controversial extensive hunting policies from the government on large carnivores – which also includes large-scale hunting of lynxes, seals and especially wolves. The Swedish government has said that they wish to halve the already critically endangered, very small and seriously inbred Swedish wolf population – despite the fact that it would very likely break EU law regarding protection of endangered species. The various nature and environmental groups as well as many from the general public are doing what they can by loudly protesting to save the large carnivores, but the hunting lobby is incredibly strong and influential in Sweden and has long had a very powerful hold within both the government and its agencies. So we’ll just have to see how it all develops.
We are going to have elections in a few weeks, so everything is divisive issue in my country currently.
UK: the boats! We’re being invaded, it’s a national emergency! It’s getting more Trumpian, Stephen Milleresque, by the day.
While it will seem like a low hanging fruit I’d say politics. Despite having more than two parties, the situation is quite simmilar to what you know from the US. The two biggest camps hating each other and throwing spanners in each other’s works.
Probably our new president. One side say he is hard-ass, but nice historian, a guardian of Poland, and other side knows he’s just a smiling hooligan, a pimp and a con-man in black suit.
Sweden’s two big divisive issues are criminality and economic inequality.
On crime, opinions are very far apart across the political spectrum. To exaggerate a bit, it spans from the right wing’s “deport any brown person and their family if they get a traffic ticket” to the left’s “we won’t even need prisons if there’s enough welfare for adults and after school activities for kids”.
The economic gaps are almost as divisive. You have people pissed off that they pay too much tax, other people pissed off that everyone else pays too little tax, companies pissed off that employees still expect a raise during inflation, and unions pissed off that companies aren’t giving enough of a raise.
Seems to be a trend almost everywhere but most issues are more divisive than they used to be. The quality of political discourse seems to be dropping still, and it’s radically different from what I remember about 20 years ago.
Capital tax, apparently.
That is to say, we’re in the middle of an election and one of the most noticeable differences between the two main center-left and center-right parties is their stance on capital tax, so the media likes writing about it. Also, some very wealthy individuals are doing what they can to make sure it stays the main issue.
Housing is a massive issue in Ireland. Younger generations are completely priced out of buying a home due to limited supply and rents are astronomical. Housing is just not being built quiclly enough. Has led to adult children continuing to live with their parents which will certainly lead to social consequences.
Immigration is rapidly becoming another divisive issue with inward migration increasing every year putting further pressure on the housing market.
Housing and tourisim, which are extremely related. Also, our (politicians’) evident ineptitude at dealing with natural disasters (Valencia’s Dana, our current wildfires, etc). Political parties keep blaming each other for the poor management of our resources during these hard times and people buy into it. We’ve got neighbours arguing over who’s guilty for the irreparable losses of thousands of people who literally saw the fires coming three days in advance and weren’t granted any protection.
Housing is the ‘hottest’ issue here in Ireland for the past few years. Not sure ‘divisive’ is the exact word thoughy because there’s a lot of overlap in the solutions being proposed across the political spectrum.
Immigration. The war in Palestine is another one. However its often the extreme opposites are the loudest. The people with a nuanced opinion in the middle are forgotten.
in the us it’s less one issue and more a constant culture war machine. everything from healthcare to housing to climate gets fed into the red vs blue blender and turned into identity politics. the real divide isn’t left vs right, it’s regular ppl trying to live vs a system addicted to outrage for profit.
Populism (hate for immigrants, minorities…, isolationism, …) vs traditionalism (freedom of speach, wokism, globalism, …): the same as in most western countries. The ground preparation for fascism!
apart from WW3? it is (in our opinion, only…) Only Housing but ”it IS the MOST divisive issue in ALL countries” and wrongly (and easily) blamed on immigration and wealth imbalance. Those are the big two everywhere… apart from WW3…
At the moment, housing, the health system, and the ongoing independence/ devolution debate.
Coming up fast on the inside track is immigration.
My instinct was to say “Brexit”, but the number who think that was still a good idea is continually falling. I suspect immigration, which is what the right wing have moved on to, is now the bigger divide.
The irony that Brexit caused an increase in immigration – particularly what the right wing would call the “wrong type of immigrants” is hilarious – but there were are.
I’m not sure if any issue is “divisive” in Denmark. We can all identify problems, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone who is arguing about how to solve it. It’s just tax re-distribution, which the current government seem unwilling to do. They are unpopular for that and other reasons. We are handling immigration ok, for now, and people pretty much agree, although it’s still an issue. Only the far right want to go further, it seems.
Housing is an issue, with the middle class in particular being forced out of Copenhagen, but that happens all over the world.
Only thing that seem divisive is the whole Chat Control nonsense, where the government is going “Think of the children!” and trying to hurry intrusive measures through, both here and in the EU.
I would say for the U.K it is immigration and wealth inequality
Scotland specific, Scottish independence is pretty divisive. Although the SNP mandate has seriously weakened so it’s probably not the burning focus it was a few years back.
Inflation, especially with regards to supermarkets. We have some of the highest prices in Europe. Products manufactured in Austria by Austrian companies are cheaper in neighboring countries than they are in Austria.
The recent rise of extremist nationalism and the censoring of certain cultural events because the war veterans don’t like them.
A right-wing serb immigrant in Norway killed an ethiopian immigrant social worker because “of political reasons” according to himself because he was racist. The big discussion is one side saying that the problem is that he was a rightwing racist. The other side says that he killed because he is an immigrant.
26 comments
Certainly immigration, I expect you’ll get the same answer from lots of people. Also the gap between the rich and poor.
I think we all know the big two, immigration and wealth imbalance
Those are the big two everywhere
Probably immigration and housing in NL. Or, people will say “immigration”, but they only give their attention to asylum seekers.
Naming one is tough, but every political issues currently is a huge mess, and they are all divisive. It would be impossible to say though which one is the most divisive.
1. **wealth distribution** (specially older gens that got everything, several houses, high pensions.. the median pension is higher than median salary).
2. **inmigration** (particularly illegal inmigration from North of Africa).
3. **housing** (related to point 1)
4. **higher taxes vs. lower taxes** (fiscal policy)
5. **climate change**
a few more like views on cultural topics basically
Spain.
As of right at this moment, one of the absolutely most divisive issues in Sweden is the ongoing large-scale bear hunt. There are a lot of extensive protests against the hunt from environmental and natural protection groups as well as from the general public – at the same time as many hunters and farmers are very strongly in favor of heavily reducing the number of bears. Many hunters have also said that they feel threatened by activists and that activists are sabotaging the hunt. And there was quite a bit of celebration recently when a man was badly injured during an attack from a bear while hunting, with people claiming the bear had every right to defend itself.
There is simply a lot of passionate feelings of both love and hate around the large carnivores in Sweden and this large-scale bear hunt is in turn just part of the extremely controversial extensive hunting policies from the government on large carnivores – which also includes large-scale hunting of lynxes, seals and especially wolves. The Swedish government has said that they wish to halve the already critically endangered, very small and seriously inbred Swedish wolf population – despite the fact that it would very likely break EU law regarding protection of endangered species. The various nature and environmental groups as well as many from the general public are doing what they can by loudly protesting to save the large carnivores, but the hunting lobby is incredibly strong and influential in Sweden and has long had a very powerful hold within both the government and its agencies. So we’ll just have to see how it all develops.
We are going to have elections in a few weeks, so everything is divisive issue in my country currently.
UK: the boats! We’re being invaded, it’s a national emergency! It’s getting more Trumpian, Stephen Milleresque, by the day.
While it will seem like a low hanging fruit I’d say politics. Despite having more than two parties, the situation is quite simmilar to what you know from the US. The two biggest camps hating each other and throwing spanners in each other’s works.
Probably our new president. One side say he is hard-ass, but nice historian, a guardian of Poland, and other side knows he’s just a smiling hooligan, a pimp and a con-man in black suit.
Sweden’s two big divisive issues are criminality and economic inequality.
On crime, opinions are very far apart across the political spectrum. To exaggerate a bit, it spans from the right wing’s “deport any brown person and their family if they get a traffic ticket” to the left’s “we won’t even need prisons if there’s enough welfare for adults and after school activities for kids”.
The economic gaps are almost as divisive. You have people pissed off that they pay too much tax, other people pissed off that everyone else pays too little tax, companies pissed off that employees still expect a raise during inflation, and unions pissed off that companies aren’t giving enough of a raise.
Seems to be a trend almost everywhere but most issues are more divisive than they used to be. The quality of political discourse seems to be dropping still, and it’s radically different from what I remember about 20 years ago.
Capital tax, apparently.
That is to say, we’re in the middle of an election and one of the most noticeable differences between the two main center-left and center-right parties is their stance on capital tax, so the media likes writing about it. Also, some very wealthy individuals are doing what they can to make sure it stays the main issue.
Housing is a massive issue in Ireland. Younger generations are completely priced out of buying a home due to limited supply and rents are astronomical. Housing is just not being built quiclly enough. Has led to adult children continuing to live with their parents which will certainly lead to social consequences.
Immigration is rapidly becoming another divisive issue with inward migration increasing every year putting further pressure on the housing market.
Housing and tourisim, which are extremely related. Also, our (politicians’) evident ineptitude at dealing with natural disasters (Valencia’s Dana, our current wildfires, etc). Political parties keep blaming each other for the poor management of our resources during these hard times and people buy into it. We’ve got neighbours arguing over who’s guilty for the irreparable losses of thousands of people who literally saw the fires coming three days in advance and weren’t granted any protection.
Housing is the ‘hottest’ issue here in Ireland for the past few years. Not sure ‘divisive’ is the exact word thoughy because there’s a lot of overlap in the solutions being proposed across the political spectrum.
Immigration. The war in Palestine is another one. However its often the extreme opposites are the loudest. The people with a nuanced opinion in the middle are forgotten.
in the us it’s less one issue and more a constant culture war machine. everything from healthcare to housing to climate gets fed into the red vs blue blender and turned into identity politics. the real divide isn’t left vs right, it’s regular ppl trying to live vs a system addicted to outrage for profit.
Populism (hate for immigrants, minorities…, isolationism, …) vs traditionalism (freedom of speach, wokism, globalism, …): the same as in most western countries. The ground preparation for fascism!
apart from WW3? it is (in our opinion, only…) Only Housing but ”it IS the MOST divisive issue in ALL countries” and wrongly (and easily) blamed on immigration and wealth imbalance. Those are the big two everywhere… apart from WW3…
At the moment, housing, the health system, and the ongoing independence/ devolution debate.
Coming up fast on the inside track is immigration.
My instinct was to say “Brexit”, but the number who think that was still a good idea is continually falling. I suspect immigration, which is what the right wing have moved on to, is now the bigger divide.
The irony that Brexit caused an increase in immigration – particularly what the right wing would call the “wrong type of immigrants” is hilarious – but there were are.
I’m not sure if any issue is “divisive” in Denmark. We can all identify problems, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone who is arguing about how to solve it. It’s just tax re-distribution, which the current government seem unwilling to do. They are unpopular for that and other reasons. We are handling immigration ok, for now, and people pretty much agree, although it’s still an issue. Only the far right want to go further, it seems.
Housing is an issue, with the middle class in particular being forced out of Copenhagen, but that happens all over the world.
Only thing that seem divisive is the whole Chat Control nonsense, where the government is going “Think of the children!” and trying to hurry intrusive measures through, both here and in the EU.
I would say for the U.K it is immigration and wealth inequality
Scotland specific, Scottish independence is pretty divisive. Although the SNP mandate has seriously weakened so it’s probably not the burning focus it was a few years back.
Inflation, especially with regards to supermarkets. We have some of the highest prices in Europe. Products manufactured in Austria by Austrian companies are cheaper in neighboring countries than they are in Austria.
The recent rise of extremist nationalism and the censoring of certain cultural events because the war veterans don’t like them.
A right-wing serb immigrant in Norway killed an ethiopian immigrant social worker because “of political reasons” according to himself because he was racist. The big discussion is one side saying that the problem is that he was a rightwing racist. The other side says that he killed because he is an immigrant.