The leader of Denmark's Left-wing Social Democrats is set to become the country's new prime minister - after adopting stringent Right-wing policies against 'non-European' migrants.

Mette Frederiksen, 41, is on course to enter office as Denmark's youngest ever prime minister with the country going to the polls on Wednesday.

Her Social Democrats, who have an eight-point lead on the eve of the vote, are set to gain power after a general election was called by the current PM, centre-right Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Frederiksen embodies the new Danish Social Democratic model, with voters apparently won over by policies that still focus on a leftist economic model but ditch traditional Left-wing thinking in terms of immigration.

Last year the party, under her leadership, presented a policy proposal that included sending asylum seekers to special reception centres outside Europe - such as North Africa - while their requests were processed.

The policy also included a cap on the number of 'non-Western' immigrants allowed into the country, borrowing rhetoric from the country's far-right that has also been adopted by Denmark's wider political establishment.

Led by Mette Frederiksen, the Social Democrats party seem to have won over voters with policies embracing right-wing facets and look set to win a majority of Wednesday's vote

According to a recent poll, Frederiksen and the opposition are set to scoop about 27 per cent of the national vote on Wednesday.

The SD have recently embraced hard line anti-immigration strategies, something human rights campaigners and victims have said has led to a rise in racism and discrimination.

But Frederiksen said during a debate on the matter earlier this month that 'you are not a bad person just because you are worried about immigration.'

Her position on the matter is clear. 'For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes,' she said in a recent biography.

Frederiksen 'has workers' blood in her veins, is a fourth generation Social Democrat ... and spent years preparing to take over the leadership (in 2015) of the party she knows so well,' daily Politiken wrote on Saturday.

Having made her debut in parliament at the age of 24, she served as employment minister and justice minister before taking the reins of Denmark's largest political party.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister and leader of the outgoing centre-right Venstre, also embraced similar strategies on immigration. He is pictured with Mette Frederiksen

She succeeded Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the country's first female prime minister after she was defeated by the current head of government, liberal Venstre's Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister and leader of the outgoing centre-right party, embraces similar strategies on immigration while Frederiksen's party has seen people migrate from the populist Danish People's Party (DPP) which were vital in propping up Rasmussen's Venstre.

Mette Frederiksen has also discussed cooperating with the DPP, led by Kristian Thulesen Dahl, in government.

'Mette Frederiksen knows that if she wants to be successful in Denmark, she has to be strict on asylum and immigration policies,' Ulf Hedetoft, a politics professor at the University of Copenhagen, said.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen's party are expected to finish a distant second on about 18 per cent of the votes with support for the far-right Danish People's party predicted to collapse to barely 11 per cent.

Under Frederiksen's leadership, the SD has called for a cap on 'non-western immigrants' entering the country and for asylum seekers to be expelled to a reception centre in North Africa along with working to earn their benefits in Denmark

Opponents say that the policies have given rise to a negative sentiment towards minorities.

Mette Frederiksen (C) arrives at a meeting celebrating the International Workers' Day in Aalborg, Denmark

Discrimination cases are up and the number of racially or religiously motivated hate crimes registered by Danish police rose to 365 in 2017 from 228 in 2016.

Louise Holck, the deputy executive director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, said: 'Politicians are moving very close to the boundaries of human rights.'

But the ruling centre-right Liberal Party and the opposition Social Democrats both say that the rulings are key to integrating migrants and refugees already in the country.

'I simply note that today, 75 per cent of parliamentarians support a tough immigration policy,' Frederiksen said in a book of interviews, 'A Political Portrait', published this spring.

If elected, Frederiksen intends to form a minority government - common in Denmark's proportional representation system - relying on the support of the left or the right on a case-by-case basis.

For Flemming Juul Christiansen, a political scientist at the University of Roskilde, this arrangement makes her 'more credible when she affirms that she will not compromise on immigration'.

But Manilla Ghafuri, 26, who came to Denmark from Afghanistan in 2001 as a refugee, fears that anti-Muslim attitudes could harden further as the immigration debate heats up ahead of the general election.

Supporters of Prime Minister Loekke Rasmussen, with blue banners, and supporters of head of Mette Frederiksen, with red banners, are seen outside during a television debate in late May

'In 2015 I thought: "Wow, what's happening?" and I think it has got a lot worse over the last few years,' she said.

She appears to be correct if the 2017 founding of Stram Kurs, a far-right anti-Islam party is anything to go by. Stram Kurs is on the ballot for tomorrow.

Ghafuri, who has more than once been told to go back to her 'own country', said she has been kicked out of a supermarket while shopping with her family. While she was working at a bakery a male customer refused to be served by her.

'I asked if I could help him, but he didn't look at me at all. He just stood and waited for another girl who is an ethnic Danish girl,' said Ghafuri, who also works as a teacher and has a degree in Danish.

'For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes,' Frederiksen said

The number of immigrants from non-Western countries and their descendants who have experienced discrimination because of their ethnic background rose to 48 per cent last year from 43 per cent two years earlier, according to the National Integration Barometer.

'If people are ready and willing to be part of Danish society and want to contribute to it, then we invite them to become part of one of the best-functioning societies in the world,' said Mads Fuglede, the Liberal Party's immigration spokesman - thinking in line with that of the incoming PM.

'But we need to be able to discuss openly if there are problems with groups of people,' he said, citing the large number of immigrant women from the Middle East who have not found work in Denmark.

Earlier this year, the government passed a law that would mean more refugees could be repatriated, the latest move to discourage non-western immigration.

Mette Frederiksen (R) and Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, arrive for a Television debate on TV 2 in Odense, Denmark in late May

The law was passed with support from the anti-immigration Danish People's Party, a key ally of the minority government, and the Social Democrats, the country's biggest party, which has hitherto had a softer stance on immigration.

It means residence permits for refugees will be temporary, there will be a limit on the number of family reunifications, and a cut in benefits for immigrants.

The law has been criticised by the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the United Nations refugee agency. Trade organisations and unions have warned that tight immigration policies could worsen labour shortages and put a brake on growth.

Fuglede of the Liberal Party said lower benefits would encourage people to work.

Around 43 per cent of refugees who have lived in Denmark for more than 3 years were employed by the end of 2018, up from just 20 per cent by the end of 2015. However, only 19 per cent of women had jobs compared to 57 per cent of men.

But while employment has risen, assimilation of immigrants has not always kept pace. More young men descended from non-western immigrants commit crimes than Danes, official figures show.