Never before had the ChristenUnie had to organize an extra conference, such as this Saturday in Ede about the asylum deal of Rutte IV. But had they ever been so hard on each other in the ChristenUnie before that just after that deal, at the end of August? In a letter, the angry members demanding a congress spoke of “morally bankrupt decisions” — especially as the family reunification of recognized refugees is being postponed. Party leader Gert-Jan Segers, in turn, felt that his House of Representatives faction and ministers had been “beaten in” very hard.
Also read: Members call on ChristenUnie to turn against government asylum deal
In Ede, where nearly four hundred CU members gathered, the letter writers and Segers took it back. If they had to do it over, they said, it would be in a different tone, maybe different words. But the asylum deal, one of the letter writers on the podium said, remained “a dirty deal.” Segers had a message for the other coalition parties, and especially the VVD: all agreements in the deal must be implemented. “That’s the lower limit.”
In the VVD there is strong opposition to the law that should force unwilling municipalities to accept asylum seekers, but that is part of the deal. If a part that is “difficult” for the others and does not go through, Segers said, “we don’t deliver anything either”. It seemed to reassure many people in the room.
Segers himself seemed to think that this was necessary. Never before had so many journalists come to a CU convention, he said, as this Saturday. “And those are disaster tourists…” The hall laughed and clapped. “…which I have set very high.” They were counting on it, he said, that the CU members in Ede would give each other ‘a nosebleed’.
Violation of human rights
After the meeting, he said he had “taste of unity in a party that puts humanity first.” But was that unit really there? On stage, CU member Antonie Fountain, one of the initiators of the letter, said that delaying family reunification for refugees means human rights violations – he received a round of applause.
“Protecting human rights also means taking good care of your own people,” said a man in the audience. And clapping for him too. Even before the meeting, over coffee, other CU members had already discussed it: the deal states that more living space will be made available for recognized refugees, but how could that be if the ‘own residents’ of a municipality could no longer get a house? ?
A CU member from Zetten started in the hall about “the influx”. “What if a city like Deventer had to be built every year? I don’t see that happening.” On the podium, Segers said, at the very end, that the ChristenUnie faction in The Hague “must go through all those dilemmas”. That included, he said, the point of the man who had started about Deventer.
The conference in Ede had started with a man calling the audience to pray for Henk Staghouwer, who resigned as Minister of Agriculture at the beginning of September. That, the man thought, had been hard on him. There is still no successor, Carola Schouten has been Minister for Poverty Reduction and Agriculture for weeks. But in the corridors of the congress hotel you could hear: this Monday the ChristenUnie will be introducing a new minister.