The ingredients for a week full of fierce political battles seemed to be there. A Budget Day with a fallen cabinet that has finished ruling. The House of Representatives was therefore in charge of the annual two-day debate on the budget. Also exactly two months before the elections. The ideal moment for parties to firmly establish the differences and to conduct a fundamental battle of ideas about which direction the Netherlands should take in the coming years. Two days of free campaign airtime, live on NPO1.
None of that. The General Political Reflections (APB) lasted hours shorter than in other years, and the atmosphere was extremely friendly at most times. Part of the explanation is that outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) was no longer the favorite target of parties: he disappears from the scene anyway. The House decided not to magnify the mutual differences, but to use the debate to spend billions on the budget in a spirit of unprecedented cooperation. The many occasional coalitions were striking, in which differences between right and left were bridged.
Is it the harbinger of a new political culture and improved mutual relations? In recent years, coalition and opposition have often been diametrically opposed to each other in parliamentary debates, and little has been granted to each other. Parliament was also often the scene of great polarization, due to provocations by the PVV and Forum for Democracy. Hard personal attacks were largely absent from this APB. And even PVV leader Geert Wilders, who still spoke about “multicultural compatriots” who were “ruining” the Netherlands, sought cooperation with other parties more than in previous years.
Populism in the Netherlands is distinguished by the agropopulism of the BBB and the multitude of flavors on the right
Anyone who listened carefully to the input of all faction leaders could hear a remarkable substantive unity about the major problems facing the Netherlands and the new political course that is now needed. From left to center-right there is criticism of market forces and government dysfunction. “In recent years we have left basic services too much to the untamed forces of the neoliberal market,” Pieter Omtzigt summarized the broad consensus. From GroenLinks-PvdA to the SGP, attention is paid to social themes such as social security, and even the VVD is in favor of a further increase in the minimum wage in its election manifesto.
Populist parties
With this unity, is the chance of a new populist revolt on November 22 smaller? That depends on how you define populist. Out new research from The Populist, a project by European political scientists in which political parties are divided into categories, revealed this week that a third of voters in Europe now vote for populist and/or radical right-wing or left-wing parties, a new record. The Netherlands was at 25 percent in the 2021 House of Representatives elections (including the SP), but due to the big win by the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) in this year’s Provincial Council elections, it was even at 38 percent.
The BBB is described in the study as populist and falls into the category of “borderline case” when it comes to the radical right. This is due to the sharp positions on immigration, says project leader and political scientist Matthijs Rooduijn (University of Amsterdam). A good example is that last Thursday BBB voted in favor of a motion by the PVV that advocates a complete asylum stop. In other words: no more asylum seekers are coming in for the time being. “When it comes to immigration, they move towards the radical right, but are sometimes also a bit milder,” says Rooduijn.
Also read: Who pays the bill for The Hague’s billions?
According to Rooduijn, the rise of BBB shows that the Netherlands now distinguishes itself in Europe when it comes to the development of populism. “BBB practices agropopulism, it stands up for the interests of farmers and rural residents. That is the oldest form of populism, which emerged in the 19th century, mainly in the United States and Russia. Radical right-wing populism only emerged later. The return to agropopulism that you now see in the Netherlands could easily be seen elsewhere in Europe.”
Another characteristic of Dutch populism is the multitude of flavors on the radical right, says Rooduijn. “There are few countries where you have so much choice, from PVV and FVD, to JA21 and BVNL. They all have different accents.” Due to the rise of BBB and Pieter Omtzigt’s new party, New Social Contract (NSC), the radical right flank in the Netherlands appears to be losing seats for the first time in years, instead of gaining.
BBB takes a constructive attitude for a populist party and, for example, is already fully involved in governance in the provinces. And apart from immigration, BBB also has more moderate positions, for example in the socio-economic field, which are in line with the middle parties and even the left. This makes a coalition with the VVD and/or GroenLinks-PvdA quite conceivable, although BBB differs more substantively from the left-wing parties.
Omtzigt
Even more in the middle is Pieter Omtzigt’s NSC, which has not yet been included in The Populist’s research. But Rooduijn would certainly not qualify NSC as radical right, nor as populist. “He once called the Netherlands a ‘banana monarchy’ and spoke of a ‘clique in The Hague that looks down on hard-working Dutch people’. If he continues to make such statements, he could move towards populist.”
According to Rooduijn, a major election victory for Omtzigt, as opinion polls now suggest, would make the Netherlands unique in Europe for another reason. “Omtzigt seems to be able to attract voters from radical right-wing parties, while he himself is not on the flanks or has a polarizing message. It shows that there is a strong need in the Netherlands for a challenger to the established order, but that this can also be someone from the middle who does so in a moderate way.”
Will the Dutch campaign remain as friendly as this week, or will it still become a real battle of ideas in which the established parties also dare to attack challengers Van der Plas and Omtzigt? This will become more clear this weekend when VVD, CDA, SP, Volt and the Party for the Animals hold their party conference.
Also read what NRC wrote prior to the APB: Everything is different in these General Political Considerations
This week it was striking at the APB that the fiercest debates with Van der Plas and Omtzigt were not about substantive differences of opinion, but rather about mores in The Hague. Van der Plas was ridiculed when she submitted a motion to increase the minimum wage “a little”, but did not provide financial cover. Omtzigt was accused by Jesse Klaver (GroenLinks-PvdA) of only criticizing. Klaver said: “What proposals do you make for all the issues you have mentioned, to ensure that we solve those problems?”
Such a strategy, addressing the competitor in a pedantic manner, can work if the voter is left with the impression that a challenger does not understand how it works (Van der Plas) or offers too few concrete solutions (Omtzigt). But it is also a risk. At the 2018 APB, Prime Minister Rutte and a large part of the House laughed at FVD leader Thierry Baudet when he did not understand how the cabinet’s assessment of motions worked. Six months later, Baudet had the last laugh: he became the biggest in the Provincial Council elections.
Business pays gifts to voters page E2-3
A version of this article also appeared in the September 23, 2023 newspaper.