In the North Brabant Land of Altena, dissatisfaction hangs in the air, waving from a flagpole. The villages are called Werkendam, Almkerk, Giessen or Hank. In between dikes, sheds, farms, a campaign sign that makes it clear which parties expect to score here: right or more right.
“We are just like Asterix and Obelix,” says Henno Timmermans in his boardroom. It’s only half a joke. His motorcycle is parked next to his desk, an Indian. “Farmers Legion” is written on the yellow flag draped over the steering wheel. Timmermans owns a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, runs a neighborhood supermarket and drives a Mercedes. Except last year, when he single-handedly drove an army truck to the farmers’ protests in Stroe.
The Gallic village here is called Veen, part of the municipality of Altena and known far beyond the rivers because the inhabitants traditionally set fire to cars on New Year’s Eve. And the Romans against whom Henno Timmermans defends himself are in The Hague. “That’s the Big Bad Government, as I call it.” He calls himself “far right” and has been voting PVV for years.
Almost unnoticed, the PVV is heading for an excellent election result on 15 March. In many provinces and in the Senate, the party has a chance of finishing second or third. Profit compared to four years ago is on the horizon almost everywhere. Forum for Democracy lent a hand: that was the party that attracted many PVV voters in 2019 and then lost them again.
But more happened since that year. In the meantime, it has only become busier on the right flank, with the arrival of the BoerBurgerBeweging, JA21, BVNL and the remnants of Forum. The collapse of their party feared by PVV MPs failed to materialize. Instead, a new, more radical block of parties has emerged to the right of the VVD, including the PVV.
Many churches, no carnival
Those who want to visit the electorate group of this block will soon end up in classic strongholds such as Pekela in Groningen or the Limburg mining region. “But that’s not the whole story,” says geographer Josse de Voogd. “Wilders would never be this big without the voters he attracts in completely different places.”
West Brabant, for example, or Waalwijk, or the Westland. Someone once called it the ‘scullery of the Netherlands’, and De Voogd thinks that metaphor is well liked because of all the warehouses and distribution centers: “It’s not very nice there, it doesn’t get much attention, but it all works.” Altena is also such a place, he adds, although it is a lot nicer.
Populist right-wing voter analyzes often focus on the economically dropped out, on the ‘losers of globalization’, but that theory is only partly true in places like Altena. De Voogd, who with René Cuperus de Atlas of the dropped out Netherlands wrote, puts it this way: “It is a different kind of disconnection for most. These are people with work, they are socially connected, healthy. But they do have the idea that society is developing away from what they stand for.”
Henno Timmermans calculates it for you. “Veen has about 3,000 inhabitants. And I think maybe one in three of them is an entrepreneur. What does that say? That the wealth and freedom we have here has been built by ourselves, not by politics. The government pays no attention to these places. And we don’t need that either, for dad The Hague who says: this is necessary and that is not.”
Dutch Brabant, of which Altena is a part, is located in the ridge of the province of North Brabant. The churches are Reformed, not Catholic. Carnival hardly anyone celebrates here. The air is full of cow manure, the smell of the pigsties only begins south of the Bergsche Maas. “It is not quite Holland and not quite Brabant either,” says Timmermans.
Altena has turned out to be fertile ground for right-wing populism. You only really see how remarkable that is when you look back at the past performance of those parties, says researcher Twan Huijsmans. The first populist bastions could still be found in the major cities at the time of the LPF. That’s tilted. “With the PVV you have seen since 2012 that the growth of that party mainly takes place outside the cities.”
Huijsmans conducts research at the University of Amsterdam into geographical patterns in political views. It is tempting to speak of a gulf between town and countryside, but Huijsmans prefers to speak of ‘local resentment’. In other words: the feeling that exists among voter groups that their place of residence is not taken seriously by national politics. “Those people are more open to the idea that the political elite is not interested in their environment.”
This distance takes many forms, including cultural ones. Huijsmans recently compared his data with other data on the difference between the local dialect and Standard Dutch. “That also appears to go hand in hand with resentment. The greater the distance, the greater the feeling that politicians do not pay enough attention.”
For example, right-wing populism has broadened from an anti-migration movement centered in the city to a broader representation of discontent, in the city and beyond.
Henno Timmermans was an LPF from the very beginning. Then came the PVV, his regular base ever since. Locally he now has his own party, the Free People’s Party Altena, with which he is on the council. But nationally he always voted PVV.
Sometimes he doubts, yes. “Wilders failed during corona, while our freedoms were curtailed.” The approach to the nitrogen crisis also annoys him immensely.
But he didn’t just find an alternative. He has no confidence in FVD leader Thierry Baudet, nor in BBB forewoman Caroline van der Plas. “Thierry is a philosopher, but not a politician. And Caroline is a wolf in sheep’s clothing to me. It lasts too much. She finally admits that there is a nitrogen problem, and I say that there is none at all. Zero.”
The emergence of new parties marks the coming of age of the right-wing populist bloc and its growing electoral potential. “Diversity has arisen regarding socio-economic points of view,” said political scientist Sarah de Lange, affiliated with the UvA, in 2021 in NRC about this right-wing column in the making. “The party program of the PVV has relatively leftist ideas, while that of JA21 is neoliberal. This is how the radical right has become attractive to a larger group of voters.”
This unease is not only cultural in nature. Facilities are disappearing in the countryside and many hot issues of the future will take place outside the big cities. There, the nitrogen crisis will transform large farming areas. Traditionally, on average more refugees end up there than in the city. The highest wind turbines and largest solar parks often end up there.
Timmermans proudly tells how he and his own party in Altena filed a motion against the construction of a wind farm. “We didn’t feel like having such a commercial party coming from outside. The motion was passed with a large majority. So also the CDA, the VVD, they also participated. You see, the VVD here is different from The Hague.”
Paradox on the right
A paradox can be seen on the right. On the one hand, the right-wing populist bloc has become detached from the rest. Attempts by VVD and CDA to bring those voters back hardly succeed. It is more difficult to say for BBB and JA21: in particular there seems to be a lot of room to exchange votes between the CDA and BBB, and between JA21 and VVD. But once you vote PVV or FVD, you rarely return.
On the other hand, the echoes of the right-wing populist programs can also be heard from the other parties. Nationally, the VVD and CDA supported a motion by JA21 to receive asylum seekers outside Europe from now on, in countries such as Rwanda. Provincial factions oppose the national nitrogen policy in the terms of opposition parties.
One of the most striking parties in that story is the changing nature of the SGP. This is striking if you compare the party with the ChristenUnie, says geographer Josse de Voogd, the party that cooperates in many places with the SGP, but is becoming increasingly distant.
“In our Atlas we still counted the SGP as a party for the established,” he says. “But the Ukraine referendum in 2016 already showed a dividing line: Christian Union voters usually voted in favour, SGP members against. This selection has accelerated further due to the corona crisis. Culturally, you see that the SGP is increasingly committed to outsiders.”
For example, the right-wing populist voter is gradually getting as much choice as the churchgoer in Werkendam, on the edge of Altena. The village has nine church buildings, Kerkendam, something for everyone. “They read the same book, but they all give their own interpretation,” says electrician Martin Vos at the bar counter. The Merwede flows outside.
Will he vote too? Yes: PVV.
A version of this article also appeared in the March 11, 2023 newspaper