For a long time, parties in the House of Representatives allowed the members of the Forum for Democracy to simmer away in debates, but Tuesday evening entered a new phase. FvD leader Lidewij de Vos was widely attacked, including by right-wing parties, about the ‘right-wing extremism’ within her party.
Parliamentary reporter
The debate in the House of Representatives about the asylum riots in Loosdrecht took a striking turn: many members in the House united by launching an attack on FvD leader Lidewij de Vos. D66, GroenLinks-PvdA, SP, Denk, but also right-wing parties such as the VVD and MP Mona Keijzer took her under fire.
De Vos said that the riots in Loosdrecht are ‘the fault of parties such as D66, CDA and VVD’ because they ‘have done nothing to slow down the asylum influx’. She addressed CDA leader Henri Bontenbal by saying, among other things, that ‘rapes’ of asylum seekers are the result of ‘the policy of Mr Bontenbal and the coalition’.
Bontenbal reacted angrily: “I will not be called a rapist. In Rotterdam style: how gross do you want it to be? I really don’t understand why you have no moral compass and that this is going too far. Look in the mirror, see if you still have a moral compass!”
It led to a series of interruptions for De Vos. The MPs believe that she is not distancing herself from the extreme right-wing violence during the asylum protests. But they also wanted to know whether the Netherlands and Europe should remain predominantly ‘white’, as De Vos’ predecessor – Thierry Baudet – said earlier. “I’m not going to answer that,” De Vos repeated several times. “I’m not going to review other people’s statements.”
Even Mona Keijzer – a companion on the right – asked her ‘like two right-wing politicians to each other’ to distance herself from Voorpost. But De Vos did not do that. “My party has nothing to do with those types of extreme right-wing groups.”
In her defense, De Vos once even slipped out the word ‘damn’ in all the frustration. Chamber President Thom van Campen asked the FvD leader to keep it civil.
Bontenbal kept trying: “What the House is asking you is simply whether you want to make it clear that you have nothing to do with the extreme right. I would like to hear that you are clearly distancing yourself, and even more, that you are making the effort to cut ties on this matter.” By not doing that, she normalizes the extreme right, Bontenbal said: “And you know that!”
Attacks do not come out of the blue
According to GroenLinks-PvdA leader Jesse Klaver, the prolonged attacks on De Vos made something clear. “The masks are falling off. Baudet stepped aside and pushed Mrs. De Vos forward to say: look, we are very normal. Tonight we see the true nature of FVD. Nothing has changed at all. This is shocking,” said Klaver.
The attacks on De Vos are of course not entirely surprising. On the one hand, left-wing parties want to oppose Forum, while right-wing parties want to seduce the same voters. But what also plays a role: Forum was one of the winners in the municipal elections and therefore once again a full-fledged opponent of the other parties.
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