Jimmy Dijk (39) goes into the elections as a married man. On 3 October, the party chairman and his girlfriend Mechteld van Duin-just like Dijk Oud-municipal councilor for the SP in Groningen-married. The decision was made before the summer; A few weeks later the cabinet fell.
Do you still have time for a marriage?
“Certainly. The wedding day and the next day I can keep free from debates and media performances. It all fits just before the elections. And everything is completely prepared. I have already bought a suit, haha.”
Jimmy Dijk was a municipal councilor for the SP in Groningen for many years before he came to the Lower House in the spring of 2023. Dijk then quickly made a career. Eight months later he already succeeded Lilian Marijnissen as party leader. It will be his first elections.
How did things go in the last two years?
“I deliberately assumed a different role than other opposition parties. The left -wing opposition in particular is often morally elevated to the interruption microphone. That does not work. You have to show what a cabinet has promised and that they then do not realize that. Take the PVV and the Zuyderland Hospital in Heerlen. Wilders promised to keep that agency there.”
Have you been able to show yourself a bit?
“I sometimes found it very difficult to talk about the content in that kindergarten with arguing people. There was a lot of hassle and chaos.”
You are also not averse to a fierce and attacking tone in the debate …
“I love hard and sharp debate on the content, but that is something other than arguing. I don’t care for rotten fish. When I walk out of the Bastion in The Hague and I speak at a pumping station a nurse who has my hands in her hair because of the high work pressure … that fierceness comes from that.”
The SP has lost nine elections in a row. The number of parliamentary seats has fallen steadily since the peak in 2006 (25 seats). When do you turn off the light at the SP?
“Well, that is not going to happen. I clearly see a slight increase in the polls.”
Well, rise … you now have 5 seats, in the pollswijzer you are at five to seven.
“That is at least a bit of a rise. We have to grow even further. Winning trust doesn’t work with one finger, that takes time.”
Even easier is to merge with GroenLinks-PvdA and be part of one large left party.
“No.”
Because?
“There is a very big difference between us.”
What difference then?
“They find connection with people in working-class neighborhoods less often. If it is carried out. If the gardener from Hengelo from Hengelo will pay the bill with a job in Harderwijk. If you think of such a plan, you will be at a great distance from the people. Or take the increase in the state pension age. That has so hard. That is a pension.”
Why do the SP voters continue to run away?
“Over the past two years we have updated and tightened our visions of migration, international politics, living and the role of the government. As a result, we have gained more face, more color on the cheeks. It is clearer what we stand for. That has been important for our party.”
You had too little that color?
“Yes, I think we were indeed … we were ready for innovation. When I started here two years ago I said: we have to work on those visions. Take migration. We can talk about labor migration all the time, but if people are worried about asylum migration we must have answers to their questions. We have that now.”
That sounds like a reproach to your predecessors.
“No, no. But it was very clear after such a series of election defeats that we had to renew.”
The most important point of your party is still the redistribution of incomes and power. Are voters still interested in that?
“Pretty.”
If the kilometer charge is introduced, the gardener from Hengelo pays the bill with a job in Harderwijk
How do you know that?
“If you go past the doors and you speak to people, you hear nine out of ten times:” The rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer. “
When we go along the doors in former SP bulbs such as Oss and East Groningen, we hear: “Rich people apparently work hard for it.”
“That frame has been strongly built up in the last twenty years. We have to resist that.”
The same people were particularly interested in cultural themes, such as migration.
“Most asylum seekers are taken care of in poor municipalities, not in rich. Asylum is therefore also a class issue. And most status holders are housed in the poorest municipalities, where there are affordable homes. Even that is a class issue.”
Does that message last?
“You have to bring that message. We have done that far too little in recent years.”
The SP has expensive plans. You want the AOW back to 65, free public transport, a lower VAT, the minimum wage in one go to 18 euros, the dentist for free, so on. Where is that pot of money?
“Free public transport is not even very expensive. If we introduce a wealth tax of 5 percent above 5 million, it delivers 12.5 billion on. You can make public transport for free three times. ”
Do you mainly want to get money from wealth tax?
“Yes. And increase the profit tax for companies. And an inheritance tax of 75 percent from an amount of 500,000 euros.”
Do you know how much you spend in total?
“Not at the moment. But no party knows that.”
No, but they now have their program calculated by the CPB. Not you.
“I think it’s very strange to throw an election program in a mold of the CPB, while a lot can be said about it. Take the deductible. There the CPB has biased assumptions, for example that abolishing will cost a lot of extra money because people will then consume as much care as possible. A ridicule: people do not want a lot of care at all. Scientists with different backgrounds.
Yet it all sounds a bit without obligation.
“Well, I find it very realistic to say that you get money at power. With profits. And that you will not spend 40 billion euros on a Trump standard.”
Do you mean the NATO standard, the 5 percent of the gross domestic product that all NATO countries will spend on defense?
“I call it the Trump standard. It is the norm that Trump imposes on our country.”
Good idea right?
“No, certainly not. Those billions are spent on the arms industry of the United States. Make America Great Again! “
Of that 5 percent, 1.5 percent are spent on, for example, infrastructure, it has been agreed. The other 3.5 percent is needed to defend Europe against the Russian threat.
“That 3.5 percent is unreal. Without the United States, Europe already gives three times as much out to Defense like Russia. ”
Apparently not enough. NATO doesn’t advise that for nothing?
“Have you been able to read the NATO capacity goals and schedules?”
You don’t trust it?
“It is not clear.”
Do you deny the Russian threat?
“There is nothing wrong with supporting Ukraine. The Netherlands spends a lot of money on it. If there are new support requests, SP is not in principle against that. We have also supported them before. But that is something other than investing many billions in Defense.”
But how do you want to protect the Netherlands against that Russian threat?
“We have an army. The expenditure on this has doubled in recent years. That is enough.”
You can’t say that the Dutch armed forces is now at war strength? There are too few soldiers and too little equipment.
“If we work together European and divide the tasks, it makes us more efficient and independent of the US”
You mean a European army?
“I am not for that. We want to decide for ourselves when we send people where to.”
Then the conscription will reactivate?
“That is not necessary.”
Should we not be solidarity with, for example, the Baltic states or Poles, who feel the threat more directly and spend more of their GDP on defense?
“There is a difference between our welfare state converting into a war machine, or doing what is needed. There are good reasons for the Netherlands to invest in cyber safety, information, our own energy network. To make us more independent. But because of that Trump standard you have to cut back on, for example, care and education.”
I wish everyone who wants a pension at the age of 65
The SP has been driving provincial and municipal for years, but nationally it will not work. Even now that seems difficult. Dijk closed the PVV and VVD already outin the election program, he calls those parties – and BBB and NSC – “right -wing fighting makers.”
Suppose you are asked to join a wide center cabinet with VVD, CDA and GroenLinks-PvdA. You don’t do that?
“Have you seen how [VVD-partijleider] Dilan Yesilgöz acts to other parties? ”
That was not the question.
“Look, the SP and the VVD together in a coalition is a bit like a merger between Ajax and Feyenoord. I prefer the alternative we have in mind.”
And that’s?
“A coalition from the SP to the CDA. Community thinkers who want to convert society instead of the VVD’s individualism. Then we get the most social cabinet ever, many people crave it. If we go on to a seat or ten, we can get a key position in the cabinial formation.” These elections. “
You have far -reaching ideas that are far from other parties. What concessions are you going to make?
“We will come a long way if we can make agreements about directing and investing in public housing, about reducing profits and market forces in healthcare and about fighting great inequality. We have been raised with the CDA on many topics in recent years. And when it comes to the economy, we have always worked with the Christian and Social Parties, also the CDA.”
I don’t hear in that list: the AOW has to go back to 65.
“We have to fight Robbertje again on topics that we do not agree on.”
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SeriesInterviews with list leaders