VVD member Tim Versnel, alderman in Rotterdam, was not there when revolt broke out in June among VVD members at the party congress in Halfweg: a majority voted against the nitrogen plans of ‘own’ minister Christianne van der Wal. “That will never happen to me,” he says. For the conference in the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam on Saturday, he has already ordered an ‘arrangement’: food, drinks and bitterballen for 24.95 euros. “I put on my slippers and stay all day.”
Another person who was not there in the spring and who is now: Claire Martens, leader of the VVD in Amsterdam. In the week of the congress, where one angry VVD member after another set the tone and the party top looked on in bewilderment, her daughter was born. Mark Thiessen, former campaign strategist of Mark Rutte, is also there. He thought for a long time about the VVD conferences: it must be. But the meeting in Halfweg, he says, has left “deep wounds in the party”.
You might think: if a crisis atmosphere already arises in the party about nitrogen, what can happen when it comes to asylum and migration, as it is now? If VVD’ers worry about anything, that’s it.
In Rotterdam, there will be a vote on motions calling on the party leadership not to agree with the asylum law of State Secretary (and VVD member) Eric van der Burg. This law can oblige municipalities to take in refugees: VVD members have been worried about this for months in provinces and municipalities. Under pressure from those party members, the members of the House of Representatives fiercely opposed the law until last Tuesday. It almost led to a crisis in Rutte IV.
‘The bucket is full’
In The Telegraph last Monday someone from the group of right-wing conservative VVD members who call themselves ‘Classical Liberal’ said that the cabinet had better stop. The bucket was full, according to this VVD member, Rutte’s party had already bowed long enough with the ChristenUnie and D66. This story led other VVD members, with the headline ‘Then the government falls’, to concern. Was that the demand at the congress in Rotterdam?
In app groups, one called ‘the new VVD’, a few hundred members have been calling on each other for a while to go to the congress, and not let a noisy group from one ‘flank’ get the attention again. pulls. After the Telegraaf piece, ‘the new VVD’ gained quite a few members, and the number of registrations for the congress increased.
In June there were about eight hundred members in Halfweg and especially the opponents of Van der Wal’s nitrogen policy knew that you could also vote online on the motions.
That is not possible this time. More than 1,400 members have already signed up. For the first time, they had to pay in advance for food and drink, or drink only (19.95 euros). The party counts on the fact that most of them will actually come.
Mark Thiessen, the former campaign strategist, will present a motion about the VVD itself, entitled ‘healthy debate’ – signed by 137 members. It says that VVD members should “base their opinions on facts and realism”, that discussions in the party “are not just there to win” and that they should “treat each other with respect, even if someone has a different opinion ”.
Us against them
It shows how concerned some VVD members are. “It should not become us against them in our party,” says Claire Martens. “We are a broad popular party with different wings. We have always had that.” But the worried VVD members who have gathered together to go to the congress do not want the ‘wing’ that has had enough of compromises to take the lead. “Cooperating with an open attitude to get things done,” says alderman Tim Versnel, “that is the soul of the VVD. We must keep them.” Versnel says that as a member of the VVD he is “greatly concerned” about the large numbers of asylum seekers. “But you can’t leave people lying on the street in a sleeping bag.”
Thiessen says that the app groups and his motion are not intended to support Rutte IV. “We are not cheering or anything, almost every VVD member is dissatisfied. It’s about how you put that into words, and what remains of the party when everyone has expressed their anger. We shouldn’t turn it into a shouting match.”
The VVD party chairman in Groningen, Ietje Jacobs-Setz, together with the JOVD, the youth club of the VVD, a motion submitted to support the asylum law – signed by almost two hundred members. The VVD must also continue to make efforts for “measures that contribute to limiting the flow of asylum seekers”. But Rutte already promised that last week.
At the congress in June, Rutte did not step on stage until the end of the afternoon, after hours of discussions about the motions. Now he already speaks in the morning, and will almost certainly do his best to make the mood in the room less grim than in Halfweg. The party top assumes that it will be exciting.
JOVD director Bram van Bon believes that the VVD under Rutte’s leadership has become a party “with a hard group discipline and enforced sociability”. There was “a kind of bitterballen culture”. “We have to be a people’s party and then you need debate. You can now see that after twelve years it is coming loose and a counter-reaction is emerging. And Classical Liberal sets the tone.”
Van Bon thinks this is a pity. “You also have ‘Liberal Green’. They are much less visible.”