Former politician Henk Brink has canceled his membership of the VVD. Brink was a member of the Liberal People’s Party for more than 40 years. His decision to break with the VVD came at the end of last year. “With pain in the heart,” he emphasizes.
Brink has turned his back on the VVD because of ‘an accumulation of factors’, he says in an explanation. The Drenthe party leaders mention the national policy regarding agriculture and nitrogen. Furthermore, he lacks ‘contact with the region’, from which the national department would have alienated itself.
“It had been going on for some time,” Brink continues about the tearing apart of his party membership. “It’s mainly about the policy of the last cabinet. There are always things you disagree about, that’s logical. I sometimes said: ‘I am a member of the least bad party’. But if you feel that you are not appreciated, then I think something about it.”
Brink’s resentment is partly reflected in the motion at the VVD congress in June, in which party members wanted to thwart the nitrogen plans of their own minister Christianne van der Wal. The motion calling for this was narrowly adopted. “But what happens? You are not spared a glance. And you hear that the supporters ‘really didn’t understand it’. Then comes a moment when you think: how long do I want this? Is this the party I would ever be a member of? have become?”
Brink says he has experienced a lot of support from Drenthe party members. “This is not about them either. This is one hundred percent about what is happening nationally.”
Brink, who lives near Zwiggelte, and has a farming business, started as a deputy in Drenthe in April 2011. In the years before that, he was a municipal councilor and later also leader of the Liberals in the municipality of Midden-Drenthe. He was also a director of the agricultural organization LTO.
As provincial administrator, Brink’s portfolio included traffic, economy and sports in his last term. One of his last acts as a VVD director was transforming the VAM mountain into a cycling attraction, which he put on display by winning the European Cycling Championships.
Whether Brink will return to the VVD if a new cabinet takes office with a different policy? “My decision was already made before the elections,” he says. “And I want to emphasize: it was with pain in my heart. Furthermore, I have a warm heart for Drenthe. And I cherish all the reactions.”