Mark Rutte believes that the House of Representatives is approaching him in an unnecessarily suspicious manner in the debate about the Prime Minister’s text messages. “If the trust is not there, then I will hear from the House. Then I will do other things. But I say very clearly here: I comply with the law, I adhere to the spirit of the law.” According to him, the House feeds social distrust in politics.
Rutte was excited about questions from the opposition that earlier in the debate spoke of a pattern of inadequate information provision to the House. “What you do then is say: dude, you don’t even get the chance anymore to defend and explain all those separate moments that we consider part of a pattern. No, that’s a pattern and this fits in again And I’m going to argue that again in this debate.” He called this sentiment “false”, saying he felt he should defend his integrity.
The Prime Minister said it is “no longer relevant” how he defends himself in the House. “What would be the reason that more and more Dutch people say: I no longer watch that debate on television? Because everything starts with mistrust. With an absolute, fundamental feeling of: the case is being bottled.” He said that other ministers have also complained in the Council of Ministers about the tone that is being adopted in parliament.