A poll has revealed that 73 per cent of Swedish citizens are in favour of banning independent religious schools after the ruling Social Democrats promised to ban them to aid integration.

Earlier this week, the Social Democrats said that they wanted to ban the schools to put power back in the hands of secular educators and prevent the rise of parallel societies in post-Christian Sweden, SVT reports.

Minister of Civil Affairs Ardalan Shekarabi commented on the proposal saying: “In Swedish schools, there will be teachers and educators who rule – not priests and imams.”

The poll, conducted by polling firm Novus and Swedish public broadcaster SVT, shows that support for the ban was much higher with men than with women with 78 per cent of men favouring the proposal compared to 69 per cent of women.

Along party lines, 77 per cent of left-wing supporters of the Social Democrats and the Green Party back the idea, while an overwhelming 95 per cent of anti-mass migration Sweden Democrats supporters back it.

The proposal was criticised by some within the ruling party, including Education Spokesman Stefan Jakobsson commenting that it was a “joke” for the government to ban functioning schools based on Western values and Christianity because of other schools which teach different values.

Kurten: 'Majority of failing faith schools are Muslim schools' https://t.co/0e3sQlYVvB — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 15, 2017

The proposal comes just a year after a report from Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) accused groups like the Muslim Brotherhood of using various methods to create a parallel society within the country, aided by a culture of politically correctness.

Last year also saw many express outrage over a report that exposed an independent Islamic school was forcing children into gender-segregated school buses and physical education classes.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven gave his take on the segregation saying: “I think this is despicable. This doesn’t belong in Sweden.”