February 13, 2024 - 4:00pm
Imagine if Nigel Farage were to win the next general election on an anti-immigration ticket. Unlikely, I know, but stay with me.
In this scenario, he does so well that no else has a credible mandate to become prime minister. However, lacking a majority, he needs to form a coalition government. The trouble is that that his potential partners — different factions of a fractured Conservative Party — are playing hard to get. The negotiations drag on. Days turn into weeks and weeks into months.
Meanwhile, the previous government continues in a caretaker capacity. It has neither a mandate nor a majority, but in the absence of a new government there’s no one else to run the country. The caretaker prime minister is trapped: in office, but not in power. This might not be plausible in the UK, where coalitions are one of the few things that happen at lightning speed. But this scenario does describe Dutch politics right now.
In the wake of a momentous election last year, the mainstream parties find themselves with no choice — but also no desire — to install Geert Wilders, a Right-wing populist, as PM of the Netherlands. His potential coalition partners are in an especially tight spot. Last week, one of the party leaders — Peter Omtzigt of the moderately populist New Social Contract (NSC) — couldn’t take it anymore and abruptly withdrew from the negotiations. He may yet return, but for now his toys are out of the pram and the talks have stalled. As Wilders recently tweeted on a related issue,“we hebben een serieus probleem” (no translation necessary).
If mainstream politicians think that obstruction is a sustainable strategy then they’re mistaken. That much is made clear by the first poll since the talks broke down. As the findings demonstrate, the voters are blaming Omtzigt, not Wilders, for the political chaos. Omtzigt’s party has lost almost half its support since the election; the same goes for the VVD (the party of Mark Rutte, the caretaker PM).
If the mainstream parties won’t allow the formation of a government with a democratic mandate, then fresh elections must be held. However, that would give Wilders even more seats in the Dutch parliament — 52 out of 150 according to the above poll.
On those numbers, he could get close to an absolute majority without the troublesome Omtzigt. An alliance that also comprised his former colleagues in the VVD, plus the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement, would have 73 seats in the 150-seat Dutch parliament. That’s three short of a majority, but just look at who’d hold the balance of power.
It may be a surprise to us in the UK, but the Netherlands has a Bible Belt. This includes an uncompromising Calvinist minority, which is represented in the Dutch parliament by the Reformed Political Party (SGP). In its 106-year history, the party has preferred to stick to its principles (including opposition to female suffrage) rather than participate in government.
Despite its disdain for worldly power, the SGP — with its three seats — could end up deciding whether Wilders becomes prime minister.
It seems incredible that this could happen in the archetypal liberal democracy. But when establishments comprehensively fail — especially on sensitive issues like immigration — the incredible is what happens.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeHow ever did somebody like Wilders, who now looks like some terrible extra from the Addams Family end up in this position ?
By sticking around, banging the same drum, and watching the ‘sensible others’ drift into irrelevance and blow themselves up one by one.
I don’t know whether I’m horrified or impressed but it was only a question of time. And I have the feeling that he’s a conviction politician and unlike Meloni, he won’t easily be bought off or led away from his chosen path.
From what I know of Wilders I wouldn’t vote for him but its not a mystery why so many voters have turned to him.
They’ve had enough of being told that having reasonable reservations about the impact of mass migration makes them abhorrent.
Think for a second about your statement “I wouldn’t vote for him.” Who would you vote for in this case? This is the whole problem of those who are so afraid of getting dirty!
PS. I upvoted you, but think for a second. It’s also about Trump and democracy as a whole
It’s like not voting for Trump. I can’t stand the guy, but the Dems are so awful, you have no choice.
I have to disagree on that. However conventionally “awful” the Dems might be, Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who tried to trash democracy in the US (and undoubtedly committed a number of crimes as well). I don’t think the Dems’ “awfulness” is in the same league.
The Dem’s awfulness is more subtle but incredibly damaging. They’re really bought into the woke & net-zero world views.
I don’t think Jan 6th was a coup. The failed attempt to smear Trump with Russian collusion was a farce and arguably worse than DJT spitting his dummy over the election outcome. Hunter Biden’s laptop being conveniently suppressed is another example of subverting democracy.
Trump isn’t the Devil, he’s a loudmouth pillock who called a few things correctly and was obstructed every step of the way by legal investigations. I’m not American and I have no say, but I don’t really want him as president. But since it makes my real political opponents so mad it might be fun to watch them foaming at the mouths if he wins.
You say “They’re really bought into the woke & net-zero world views”. I guess that I have to feel a grudging admiration for someone who has the self-confidence to disagree with 99% of those whose job it is to study climate, and to attribute climate change to a monster conspiracy.
I referred specifically to net-zero being touted as the solution to climate changing. A solution that will impoverish the countries that aim for it. I’m all for being cleaner and kinder to the environment, but net zero isn’t the way.
Climate changes constantly but CO2 is not proven to be the earth’s thermostat. The basis for the oft-quoted “99% of scientists” is very shaky indeed. Man-made climate change is spoken of as fact, when at best it’s a theory. Dissent is forbidden. Contrary evidence is suppressed. This is not science.
I don’t know if there’s a monster conspiracy, or just a few charlatans whipping up panic but it’s certainly incredibly profitable for some and supported by an incredible PR machine. There is no climate crisis.
David, please read a few chapters of Huxley’s “Brave New World” and then reconsider that phrase “those whose job it is to study climate.” 🙂
I’m so sorry to tell you. You have been indoctrinated into the idea that only elite humans are authorized to discuss science (whether climate, biological origins, or medical research) and anyone outside of the cartel is a denialist. This is a manufactured falsehood vehemently maintained by the credentialed elite. It’s simply not true. You will become free when you discover that the truth cannot be bought and sold, and that your rational mind has a built in BS-detector. Use it. It’s not wrong to disbelieve the official narrative. It doesn’t make you a fruitcake. It makes you dangerous.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that climate change is about “the science”. They lose sight of the fact that it is now a culture war.
It isn’t anything like 99%. You’ve bought into the Kool Aid there. But in any case, we are not, whatever hot air is spouted on this issue at the ever increasing number of COP conferences, going to achieve Net Zero in these ridiculously short timescales. China has already stated as much. In the meantime, transferring oil and gas production even more to Russia, the Middle East and Venezuela as well as industrial production, is a pretty stupid strategy, whatever your views on climate.
I don’t in any sense “like” Trump, but I supported him against Hillary, because she was truly awful. I always knew that there would be a problem if Trump lost, because his planet-sized ego and his toddler-temperament wouldn’t be able to cope with the fact that he was a “Loser”. However, I didn’t predict just how badly that would turn out.
The fact that such an awful creature as Trump was elected President in 2016 is a massive indictment of the of horrendous politics of the Left. When will these people start to appreciate the extent of the damage they have inflicted on their/our ‘free’ world?
I think it was more of a “Hillary” thing. Pretty much any other plausible candidate would have beaten Trump.
I agree with much of this. January 6th might not have been a coup – it might at least showed that Trump had some understanding of power if it had been. But it looked very ugly, and he did incite it.
However, Trump is not the answer as much of the American RW seem to believe.
Yah no. It was a protest against apparent shenanigans by the left to rig the election, which no one understood until later that it was all legal like. Changing voting rules and harvesting votes trashes ‘democracy’ far more than a one time riot.
But it’s ok for Trump to ring a State Attorney General and ask him to “find” 11,500 more votes, right? There couldn’t be anything wrong with that?
Similar to Donald Trump here in the USA. As you stated, ” its not a mystery why so many voters have turned to him (in this case Trump).
This is truly an astonishing article. If I understand it correctly, the mainstream Dutch parties, democratically rejected by the electorate, are refusing to cooperate in allowing the people’s choice for leader to take power. It is a somewhat more polite, and I suppose passive-aggressive, version of the in-your-face lawfare in the US to prevent Trump from even running again.
So many strange things have become normalized in Western politics; we barely seem to notice anymore when the Establishment engages in profoundly undemocratic means to remain in power when the people clearly want them gone.
I don’t think it’s undemocratic. This is the mess you get with a PR system. For all the faults of first past the post, this stuff doesn’t happen. From what I understand, Omtzigt is a fiscal hawk and he doesn’t like the spending pgms of Wilders.
First-past-the-post runs into trouble, Mr Veenbaas, when you have opposing political groups of committed, determined and righteous people who cannot bear the idea of their opponents running the country. Democracy might benefit from a less fervent political class.
First past the post has its own problems as well. I can’t speak for others, but in the US, it’s tended to reduce voter choice down to two political parties. Those political parties then, being outside the purview of elections directly, are far freer to engage in various shenanigans to use wealth and influence to affect outcomes regardless of the popular will. In the US, political parties have traditionally been broad coalitions run by various regional and commercial interests. The US has just recently gotten to the point where the parties are transparent enough to be susceptible to voter will at all. Part of that has been state level reforms and grassroots action but by far the biggest factor has been the information freedom provided by the Internet, which is why the establishment is trying so hard to control it. As we’ve all seen, it doesn’t prevent the establishment from trying to block the popular will. They just have to use different tactics to accomplish the same strategy. The establishment did everything they could to get rid of outsider candidates. They failed with Trump but succeeded with Sanders. They’re now using the legal system against Trump, something which I think sets a far more dangerous precedent and is far more undemocratic than anything Trump has done or even attempted to do.
Hmm. The “information” people rely on from the internet is often grotesquely partisan and biased, with not even a scintilla of an attempt at a balanced view on anything. Goodies and baddies. As you can easily see on this comments page.
And as for Trump, he of course makes it all too easy for the establishment…. It helps not to be egregiously dodgy in your financial, tax and personal affairs. He says pretty repulsive stuff which cannot be denied. He puts off more Americans than he attracts..l This was all well known years before he ever decided to run fir President. He can’t get along for more than 5 minutes with people even on his supposed own side. Never can there have been a less appropriate “saviour” of the country – it is almost sad how many people seem to quasi worship him.
You’re not wrong. Trump has all sorts of flaws that make him an easy target. He does put off a lot of Americans, including myself. Whether it’s more or less than he attracts is a debatable point based on the numbers. He put off a lot of traditional voters to be sure but also brought in a lot of people who hadn’t been voters before, and it’s hard to parse which effect is greater. Your also correct that he has a long history of being a buffoon, a grifter, an opportunist, and a shady dealer since long before he became political.
The mistake you make is the same one the mainstream media and establishment makes. It does not follow that Trump’s voters all share the same character flaws of the man himself, or even that said voters are unaware of said character flaws. Indeed, as you say, Trump has a long public history that everyone knew about. They don’t worship him for who he is or even vote for him for who he is. Some of them do like the brashness, the anger, the combativeness, because they see it as a simple case of t*t for tat against a dogmatic progressive wing that, in their view, is seeking to undermine and destroy traditional American culture, and an establishment that cares more about people in China and Mexico than its own citizens. People know exactly who and what Trump is, but they don’t care. They don’t care because they have lost all faith that the government will ever address their interests. It reached the point where they would vote for anyone who challenged the establishment. There was nothing special about Trump himself. Anybody with a pulse who got on the stage with a similar anti-establishment message could have beaten the weak class of neocon stooge candidates in 2016 and gone on to beat the most unpopular Democratic nominee in modern politics. Trump just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Attributing Trump’s followers to Trump himself is a grave miscalculation, one nobody should be making in 2024 after he’s survived what he has. There’s nobody that could survive that level of political attack unless the people leveling said attacks had truly lost all respect of a significant share of the voting public. The mainstream media could show photos of Trump eating babies and the people wouldn’t believe they were real, because they have no trust. People think the media will say anything and make up anything to implicate Trump and it’s hard not to agree with them based on what’s actually happened.
I’m not even a Republican. I just want sensible governance, and what the Democrats are doing is stupid and dangerous in the long run. Trump’s danger is that he will do something stupid in the short term. It’s certainly a problem, but, difficult though it may be to fathom, worse things can happen. There are worse things than dismantling NATO or withdrawing from global leadership. From a European perspective, I can understand the apocalyptic implications, but Russia isn’t any threat to Americans. Neither is China, really, except to the extent our own corporate elites have empowered them. If the Democrats want to keep the global establishment at all, they should be willing to accept some compromises. Trump should have been a wake up call that a serious course correction was needed. The elites should be frightened, and they are, but they’re ignoring the big monster standing behind the smaller one. Too many of them still think Trump is some kind of Svengali and that he’s the source of their problems. Their problems are a lot bigger than many of them realize, and they’re not nearly frightened enough.
A nice essay except for “Trump’s danger is that he will do something stupid in the short term.” He didn’t in his first term, why would that change? You’re thinking of Joe and the people who administer the pharmaceuticals.
The information from the NYTimes, WaPo and the rest of the legacy media owned by the plutocracy is not “often grotesquely partisan and biased”? You could have fooled me.
You’re right, to a degree. But it’s more a case of what you get when you have career politicians and a political establishment that no longer feels that the electorate is worthy of it.
“…the mess you get with a PR system.”
Every electoral system has its downside. It’s another case of Thomas Sowell’s “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
Politics is always a matter of long, messy wrangling sessions. In FPTP it all happens inside each political party, before the manifesto is put out, when a pretend united front is presented to the public. Sooner or later the pretend united front comes apart, the electorate get angry with the mess and want to vote in someone else and (because FPTP tends towards only 2 parties being viable) they really only have one other option.
Personally I’d rather have Single Transferable Vote, giving me the option to vote for a party I genuinely want and to even rank them on the ballot paper, with the resulting likelihood that I’ll end up with a representative I don’t actually hate. For that, I’d be willing to trade in the superficial clarity of FPTP.
Agreed! Truth is, the vast majority of people vote AGAINST the candidate they cannot stand instead of voting FOR the candidate they could get along with. This is what leads to political polarization. Political success has become painting your enemy in such hideous colors that your own flaws look benign in comparison (e.g. Trump / Biden). If STV can end political polarization, bring it on…
Israel has a completely proportional PR system and is now very polarised (of course the Gaza war has perhaps temporarily brought people together -but that’s an extreme situation). Poland, France, now even Germany. You can’t address fundamental cultural shifts – which essentially is the slow dying of the liberal democratic model in the West – by administrative tinkering. This model requires many things, including, ‘losers’ consent’ and the acceptance of election results, the fundamental legitimacy of the concept of an honourable “loyal” opposition, even agreeing the same facts, all of which are under severe challenge in the US if not so much elsewhere (yet….).
There is nothing wrong with the liberal democratic model. The problem is that it has been captured by “we know better than you” globalists and no-nothings who get everything they need from WEF talking points.
First past the post has its own problems as well. I can’t speak for others, but in the US, it’s tended to reduce voter choice down to two political parties. Those political parties then, being outside the purview of elections directly, are far freer to engage in various shenanigans to use wealth and influence to affect outcomes regardless of the popular will. In the US, political parties have traditionally been broad coalitions run by various regional and commercial interests. The US has just recently gotten to the point where the parties are transparent enough to be susceptible to voter will at all. Part of that has been state level reforms and grassroots action but by far the biggest factor has been the information freedom provided by the Internet, which is why the establishment is trying so hard to control it. As we’ve all seen, it doesn’t prevent the establishment from trying to block the popular will. They just have to use different tactics to accomplish the same strategy. The establishment did everything they could to get rid of outsider candidates. They failed with Trump but succeeded with Sanders. They’re now using the legal system against Trump, something which I think is at least as bad as what Trump did on Jan 6th. They can’t save democracy by abrogating the democratic process. Anyone who can read poll numbers and graph them over time should have seen by now how it’s made him more popular and concluded it never should have been attempted in the first place, and the longer they persist, the worse it makes them look.
If the Netherlands had a first past the post system, Wilders and Omtzigt would probably be in the same party and they’d be fighting over it in the same manner Trump is fighting Romney, Haley, McConnell, and all the other old guard Republicans. The establishment would still be doing whatever they could to keep their agenda in place. Is that really better? I don’t know. They both reflect the same dynamics at play and it’s obvious the voters can see exactly what’s going on. Tomayto Tomahto.
Its not quite like that.
Dutch elections are held under the D’Hondt PR system which always results in a relatively large number of parties represented who are not under any obligation to support the largest party if they are opponents or the terms aren’t right for them.
Of course its more difficult because its Wilders, but the process of coalition forming is essentially the same as any other largest party.
The D’Hondt system is what created the catastrophe in Scotland for the SNP… happily.
“Catastrophe” is rather over stating the situation, isn’t it? The SNP are by far the largest Scottish party both in the UK and Scottish Parliaments.
The bigger point is that systems don’t in themselves create political dominance. They can workin their favour of a party much of the time, then against them, as the Liberals found out in the 1920s and the Conservatives may well in the middle 2020s…..
This is not so unusual – in Ireland’s last election, Sinn Fein undoubtedly won, but a coalition of the two neoliberal parties (who technically hate each other) allied with the Greens (!) and so were able to assemble a parliamentary majority.
Of course, you can pull this type of travesty and in-your-face perversion of the popular will just so many times … but politicians don’t think further than the immediate election. Après moi le déluge is the motto, and one of these days, like the wolf constantly being cried about, it will come.
Why is it a “travesty”? It’s a perfectly normal outcome of a PR system. Sinn Fein won a plurality, not a majority of the votes of the Irish people and thereby seats in the Dáil. It’s perfectly possible in first-past-the-post systems to lose the popular vote but nonetheless become the largest party. It’s the outcomes different systems might lead to.
The other political parties are also closer to each other than they are to Sinn Fein, not being far apart ideologically and originally representing opposing sides in the Irish Civil War.
Do not forget a certain Labour leader who recently spat on the result of the biggest vote ever in the UK. Denying the legitimacy of a fair election, he leading the disgraceful Remainiac putsch for a Second Referendum. Strange days indeed. But both are now normal reflexes within Europe’s EU-driven anti democratic Progressive New Order.
Ancient political history! If Starmer’s position on the Referendum were today remotely politically salient, people could vote against Labour. I doubt they will, the utter incompetence and division, not to say mass deceit of the Tories will weigh more heavily, I feel.
I support Brexit, but the fact is that there was no coherent plan, and the Brexiteers were divided and glib about the difficulties of leaving an economic union the UK had been part of for 40 years. Leave won mainly on the issue of immigration, but astonishingly, net immigration is today 3.5 times greater than it was at its greatest under Blair’s government!
The country is also clearly is not ready to diverge in any meaningful way from the European model. The Tories are mainly a Thatcherite, not a nationalist, party – and that’s a minority position in the country
Another referendum today would almost certainly result in a significant Rejoin majority. Who could blame the people were they to do so?
The current Tories are not Thatcherite at all. Most of their policies are a shade to the left of the Blair government and there are barely a handful of Thatcherite Tories left in parliament. The overton window of acceptable politcal opinion has moved such a huge distance in the last decade.
The fact is that if the Dutch people really wanted Wilders to be PM, they could have given him an outright majority.
They probably will pretty soon. The changes underway across Europe are crystal clear and everywhere, and the only people who think stubbornly ignoring them will work are the academic, public sector, wokey political cohort.
These days, their fallback position when voters vote the wrong way in numbers too big to ignore (Possibly France next year) is to try and bring in the Lawyers. That won’t work for much longer, either.
Well, if the Dutch do give Wilders an outright majority, the equation changes. However, they haven’t done so yet.
Its not at all undemocratic, quite the opposite actually. Its true that Wilders got the most votes and therefore seats (being a PR system) but he was far from gaining a majority of seats in the Parliament. A PR system is actually a good system for allowing the right-wing voice to be heard (that’s democracy isn’t it?) whilst at the same time limiting it. The problem is the other parties. Former prime minister Rutte’s party is now led by a secular Kurdish female. Prior to the election she indicated that she would be prepared if necessary to go into coalition with Wilders. Since the election she appears to have retreated from that position. In the poll you show above she seems to have lost support precisely because of her retraction. Clearly many voters who admired Wilders but were not quite willing to trust him entirely voted for her.
Problem even in the Dutch PR system: he got roughly 34% of the vote – so i guess 25% of the eligable voters – many of whom abstained – way more % than Bliar’s or Herr Thatchlers last 2 victories but still not a mandate. Alongside the long term Anarchist slogan: “don’t vote it only encourages them” if society doesn’t find a way to allow government ( let alone policing and social policy) by consent messrs mierdo and ventilador will come together with nasty consequences
People might for one thing, vote in a different way within FPTP and PR systems. These have different advantages and disadvantages but there is no perfect pure democratic system. In fact this has been proven mathematically,. “Perverse” outcomes can always happen (except in an election for a single person, such as Head of State, on the basis of a pure popular vote).
Also, what does your last sentence actually mean?
It’s worse than that! Even if Wilders manages to form a majority, the policy he was elected to enact – a big reduction in immigration – will be stymied by the EU and ECHR. The idea that the Dutch population have the ability to pull policy levers through their elected representatives is for the birds.
If the elite spits on citizens, sooner or later citizens will spit on elite
more like put the elite on a spit.
If democracy does not allow peoples voices to be heard they will choose a strong man to defend themselves. Progressives are laying the foundations for the very fascism they fear.
Wilders is popular because of the sudden injection of Woke into Dutch left-wing politics. It’s always been there, but it’s been ramped up to 300% in recent years. Unlike their British and American counterparts, the Dutch working class aren’t at all ashamed of their colonial past and political correctness is anathema to their way of communicating. They value brutal honesty over pleasant falsehoods.
Good for them!
That’s probably why nobody likes them.
The British working class isn’t ashamed of Britain’s colonial past either, not that it ever has a great deal to do with them.
Not unashamed. Normal Brits, regardless of class, are proud of the British Empire and all it achieved.
Wilders is just the tip of the iceberg.
I don’t think the comparison with Farage is relevant. Farage was always a media creation. Farage is not a racist or anti-Islamist in any real sense. He duped a not insignificant part of the electorate by giving the impression that he might be, and with the help of the media and Britain’s first-past-the-post system he has achieved enormous power to influence the Conservative Party over the last 10 years without ever having managed to get himself elected into the House of Commons despite various attempts at doing so.
“It seems incredible that this could happen in the archetypal liberal democracy. But when establishments comprehensively fail — especially on sensitive issues like immigration — the incredible is what happens. ”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The establishment parties have no one to blame but themselves. The more they stall though, the worse it’s going to get for them. It’s becoming too obvious what’s going on. The people have spoken and the aristocrats are trying to avoid following the public will. It’s hard to see it as anything other than what it is. People aren’t that stupid. The elites had better make their peace with history pretty quick and start letting go of their pie in the sky globalist goals in order to save themselves, or it could get really ugly for them.
Reminds me of what we have here in the United States, to save democracy some want to prevent democracy. Classic Progressive thinking when the common people can’t be trusted to know what is good for them and make the correct decisions (think climate nowadays).
Hopefully the Dutch will have another election soon and I hope Wilders gets even more votes.
If democratic ideals were born in response to monarchies, clergy, and serfdoms; then isolationism, our next phase of social evolution, will be born out of a reaction to ignorance and an inability to understand history. The next phase for Europe is to isolate itself, similar to how China did when it built the Great Wall to protect its traditions and maintain sovereignty, and to emerge sometime in the future ready to engage.
The challenges (ignored, unconscious, or will fully oblivious in arrogance) are experiences stemming from the fact that when China isolated, the world was vastly different from today’s extreme interconnectedness and interdependence, which are the results of colonization and imperialism by the Europeans mainly.
IMHO, this shift may truly set Europe back to medieval times or incredible inner turmoil of its vast diverse societies, given that China has already captured the technological phase of the monetary world. Monetary dynamics will change significantly with advancements in technology, as China has already developed the financial systems of Asia and Africa through mobile technology—a development that is still absent in other regions.
Basically it is not the right time to leave the party…we are just getting started to dance!
Democracy is the worst system, apart from all the others.
Protect the working classes or democracy will fall. Existential needs like safe neighborhoods, feeding your kids and making rent are more important than voting.
What a relief to read a political article without “hard-right” worked into in it by a lazy journalist.