What do people see in him? (Carl Court/Getty Images)
“We will ensure that money is for normal people, normal families, hard-working Nederlanders,” calls out the two-metre tall, platinum blonde man. Free beer is flowing in De Blauw Trap bar in Venlo, the hometown of the old face of the Dutch far-Right, Geert Wilders. He’s back, to launch a new campaign, in front of several hundred people and almost a dozen police. “We choose for the Dutch first. I want to hear one thing from you: the Dutch first! Nederlanders eerst!”
Like everything in the life of this man — who, as a result of his criticism of Islam, has received death threats and had 24/7 security for 19 years — the words are carefully chosen. Other populist parties on the Dutch Right have risen and fallen but Wilders, remarkably, is still here, the longest-serving MP, with 25 years in parliament. He is the establishment “outsider”, dependably critical of the government, and the Netherlands’s best-known party leader. And right now, he is polling as the biggest voice on the far-Right, ahead of next month’s general election, with his anti-immigration, anti-Islam stance combined with left-wing social policies on topics such as benefits, pensions and healthcare.
Most parties have for years said that they will not work with Wilders. Objections have been made to his attitude towards the rule of law and his refusal to apologise for a 2014 speech calling for “fewer” Moroccan people — which was judged to be criminal. But now, for the first time in a long time, his Party for Freedom (PVV) has a chance at governing. The party currently leading some polls, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), has a new head, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, and she has said she will “not shut out any party” from coalition negotiations.
So, does this party of one — for Wilders is the only member — really want to be part of the Dutch government it has been attacking for years? “Yes, we do, actually — and I think our chances are improving by the day,” he tells me, leaning in and speaking softly. “Because people or parties who were excluding us are not, now — at least not all of them — and we are doing better every week in the polls.” Why is this?
“We have a very stable party, a good programme, good candidates and people are really fed up with policy about asylum seekers, immigration and terrorist threats. So, I believe if there would be any chance for us — which, of course, is not true, but still — if there would be any chance to govern, it would be now.”
Indeed, despite the recent rise of a Dutch farmers’ party, and one hat splintered from the Christian Democrats under the popular backbencher Pieter Omtzigt, Wilders has endured in Dutch politics. “Wilders has, over the years since 2006 when he started the Party for Freedom, built up a very strong brand,” says Sjoerd van Heck, a pollster at Ipsos. “He has adhered to the basic principles of how you position something in the market, communicating a consistent message and always staying true to it.” He is, for instance, consistently anti-immigration.
As an immigrant to the Netherlands, I found it somewhat uncomfortable to interview the people who came to the PVV launch. It was surprising to find that many think Wilders sometimes goes too far. “I don’t see him as prime minister, but he has a lot of good points,” says Robert, 65, from Roermond. Past proposals, such as for a headscarf tax, are not popular, even among his supporters.
Jeanet Brakel, 48, from Noord Brabant, tells me: “He says things you’re not supposed to say, and some people find him too hard-line, but he does it for us and he does it in a funny way.” I wonder if she would feel more kind-hearted towards immigrants if she felt less hard up herself? “It’s difficult,” she replies. “Everything is expensive. Holland was a rich country but now so many people are lining up [for benefits] and the foreigners come here and get everything.”
To his supporters, Wilders is a strong voice against the cosmopolitan, liberal ideology that, most feel, leaves them behind. He has what van Heck, the Ipsos pollster, describes as “an economic agenda that’s a bit Left-wing”. And some of those I met at De Blauw Trap swing between fringe parties on the far-Right and those on the far-Left. Hai van Dijk, from Venlo, says he has swung between Wilders and the Socialist Party (SP). “It’s all a protest vote, an anti-vote,” he says. “People don’t feel heard.”
He is not alone, according to Matthijs Rooduijn, associate professor of political science at Amsterdam University. “Discontent was always mobilised by parties on the fringes of the political spectrum: radical Right parties or radical Left parties like the SP,” he says. “But right now, we have two parties that are really mobilising this discontent — and really expressing worries about our politics in the Netherlands — that are not clearly from the fringes of the political spectrum.” That is, the new farmers’ party, and Omtzigt’s.
Responding to this new challenge, from these two new parties, Wilders has claimed in the Dutch press that he is “milder” than he used to be, willing to cooperate on reducing asylum rather than “banning” it, and scrapping his “Ministry for Remigration and De-Islamisation”. But Rooduijn says the content of his manifesto is much the same: “When you look at his programme and ideas, it’s not really more moderate than it was in the past. What has changed is maybe the tone of Wilders” — in a bid, apparently, to appeal to more mainstream parties as a coalition partner.
The other thing that has changed, according to Rooduijn, is “the fact that Yeşilgöz has opened the door a little bit”. But, he adds, “I still don’t think it is very likely he will be part of a government coalition”. Other parties, not least Omtzigt’s recent addition, still exclude Wilders. Omtzigt is currently leading some polls, and his manifesto launch this week addresses the core issues of this election: promoting a decent standard of living, controlling immigration, but above all restoring trust in government. Recent scandals have severely damaged faith in politicians — including one relating to earthquake damage in Groningen and another relating to tax that felled a previous government and is still unresolved.
It will be very difficult for any government to restore that trust, though. The Netherlands is one of the world’s most proportional systems, with 21 groups in parliament and 26 standing. A whole spectrum of views gets parliamentary representation, but the irony is that voters have very little influence over who actually governs: the coalition process is a “black box” of political negotiation that takes place in The Hague, not the ballot box.
Whether or not Wilders succeeds in being part of government — or supporting a minority coalition — the influence of far-Right parties like his is undeniable. “To some extent, these voters have succeeded,” says Rooduijn. In response to them, centre-right parties have shifted their policies. “They have become more restrictive on immigration, more focused on identity issues,” he says, in a bid to win back voters.
Meanwhile, Wilders sells his story of being an outsider while taking a vigorous, sometimes poisonous, sometimes funny part in the democratic system. He is an excellent debater, sharing his quick wit in the chamber through social media clips and regular newsletters. In a recent budget debate, he enticed his Forum for Democracy rival Thierry Baudet to explain why he doubts the moon landings happened, before saying, like a practised stand-up: “I think you are already quite far on your way to the moon.”
Was he inspired by Trump, with his banter and his America first mantra? “Well, it was not what I thought about: I am not Trump,” he tells me. “But it is happening in many Western countries and also in the Netherlands, that our own people have been forgotten: normal, average people, families, who are having trouble making ends meet.” Although at the campaign launch, Wilders referenced the conflict in the Middle East and terrorist acts in Europe — and has consistently been pro-Israel — his voters seem focused primarily on the Netherlands. “We are there for them.”
After an hour of pressing the flesh, he is ushered into a car which 11 police officers accompany out of the square. Back in De Blauw Trap, the crowd trickles home. And I notice a sign above the bar. “Nights you can’t remember,” it reads, “with friends you’ll never forget.”
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeLet us remember the Guardian’s trust is reputedly founded on Slavery money- is this true or is it a myth ? .
Who cares? The days when a self-selected and hypocritical elite could tell the rest of us what to think and expect us to doff our flat caps and say ‘aye aye yer honner’ will soon be gone for ever.
Democracy is coming.
Shutting both the titles would make the world a happier place!
The hypocrisy and double dealing of the Guardian’s business decisions should hardly come as a surprise.
Guardian Media Group, when it sold its 50% stake in Auto Trader to Apax Partners in 2008, used a tax-exempt shell company in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying corporation tax. GMG realised over £300 million in profit on that sale – yet paid not a sou in Corporation tax. This was all perfectly legal.
Over the years Guardian Media Group has invested hundreds of millions in offshore hedge funds. Keeping it under the radar and beyond the grasp of HMRC. Again, all perfectly legal.
And yet, the high-minded journalists of the Guardian love nothing more than thundering their disapproval of large multinationals – Starbucks, Apple, Vodafone etc – and the unnamed “super-rich” not “paying their fair share.”
Guardian columnists (especially Nick Cohen before his excommunication) regularly get their knickers in a bunch over such tax avoidance – though oddly never train their guns on their employer, the sanctimonious Scott Trust. Why do multinationals warrant such opprobrium whilst GMG escape any criticism? What, pray, is the difference? They too are not breaking laws, merely using every legal loophole they can find to their best advantage.
After the Panama Papers story brought a lot of this to light there were many (individuals and companies) who leapt to their own defence, suggesting that even their most opaque business dealings were legal – according to the letter of the law – yet that simply wasn’t good enough for Guardian journalists who sniffily pointed out that such obfuscation was immaterial. They might be legal by the letter of the law, but not by the spirit.
Hey ho, merely another chapter in the ongoing ‘do as we say, not as we do’ saga that is the Guardian’s entire modus operandi.
As I noted the other day, the Guardian is by far the most destructive publication in the UK. Its circulation is paltry, yet its influence is pervasive and pernicious. The Guardian has an “on-air” wing in the shape of the BBC. It is also required reading for the legions of metropolitan fauxialists who manage practically every quango and institution in the country. Not to mention that it is the go-to news source for the vast majority of the teaching profession.
So although circulation figures are ever dwindling, it informs the worldview of a great many people who influence the agenda and shape the country’s -and our children’s – future. The Britain hating, race-baiting, class-envy, history-revisionist, climate-catastrophising, woke, pc leftist clap-trap that we all complain about, is in large part down to the Guardian dripping its poison every day, thirstily imbibed by readers who influence and skew the national discourse.
The G’s ongoing narrative is wholly at odds with reality – they have a dystopian worldview and narrative predicated on catastrophism – it seems almost as though they are willing such a future into existence, Presumably so they can console themselves in a sanctimonious circle-jerk of “I told you so”.
The Guardian proudly trumpets “Comment is free… but facts are sacred”. Yet facts are so routinely ignored in favour of their preferred narrative that I wonder how the Editors still put out CP Scott’s dictum every day with a straight face.
And of course Comment is decidedly not Free on the Graunaid’s web-site. See how long a comment in suppport of, say, foxhunting, lasts before it is deleted.
Anyone who “donates” even a brass razoo to The Grauniad needs their head well examined. I agree with all your opinions and the facts are beyond dispute.
Ah the morality of the left . Sacrificing humans and families for reward.
This Observer/Guardian/Scott Trust kerfuffle has many of the elements of an episode of Midsomer. So many characters, plot and subplots. So many unknowns.
This article is inaccurate insofar as the Guardian barely has any reputation left to damage.
True enough.
It’s amusing to read lefty journalists that think that ink-stained wretchdom is a sacred trust. Maybe you chaps should transform the Guardian / Observer into a Church of Activism. Or something.
I remember back in ‘93 when the Observer effectively became the Sunday Grauniad. The late great Paul Johnson wrote at the time, “What do you Guard? For whom do you Observe?”.
Yes. I used to be a faithful reader of The Observer until it became clear, following The Guardian‘s takeover, that the paper’s ethos had been ruined by ‘progressive’ prejudice. It can never be the same as it was, but new ownership might change it for the better. We’ll have to wait and see.
“Moreover, The Guardian and the Trust are sitting on a £1.3 billion cash mountain, with millions added every year from donations by readers of its website and figures such as Bill Gates.”
Now that’s a story I’d like to read: where does the Trust/Guardian get most of its money? Apart from Gates, are any other billionaires footing the bill and why?
Ironically given its editorial enthusiasm for taxing the rest of us, the Trust was originally set up to avoid inheritance tax and has since been re-constituted multiple times to be more tax efficient since.
It’s money comes from owning print titles and investing in new media. It is very cash rich largely because it sold off assets over the last decade or so, including the Autotrader title for £600m.
The Autotrader was it’s saving at the time, the Guardian had 50% and flogged it off. It has no paywall but gets subs from it’s wokie readers and can always tap up the Lord Alli set for bigger amounts than the £15 a year most people would offer.
The Guardian doesn’t like talking about the Autotrader reading class these days, it considers them part of Hillary’s deplorable class of people.
Basically now it’s a glorified blog site wittering rather than reporting, with a shrunken news site and even more shrunken print version.
Having its stories circulated on Twitter/X (which they still are despite it flouncing off officially) is a two-edged sword as it acts as much as a don’t bother paying, as a come-on.
The Gardian goes cap in hand to its readers every day, telling them how poor it is and how much it needs their donations to keep going.
I was thinking of throwing my hat into the ring with an offer to buy both The Gaurdian and The Observer. Moreover, I would pledge to retain all existing staff and columnists. I would, however, make one tiny change by adding the strapline The Home Of Satire below the banner. None of the staff would get the joke, but then they don’t realise how funny they really are. There’s irony in that, as well as satire.
Try: off-guardian.org
The rush is probably the Guardian is still losing money and a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush,
Business is volatile and they are smart to take the opportunity before them.
The Guardian newspaper itself may lose money but the Scott Trust has more than enough to cover it. Guardian Media Group also includes various other profitable media businesses and a new media venture capital fund.
The simple answer is that the Trust has had a strategy of selling-off legacy media holdings for the last 15 years, including things like regional print media and local radio. Selling the Observer title is just the next step. Their online brand is already consolidated under the Guardian banner, so it makes little sense to maintain a separate Sunday operation.
The Observer seems to have made £3.4 million last year. Not very much, but still enough to make it odd that the Scott Trust might be preparing to pay the lossmaking Tortoise Media to take it away.
Still, it is clear from yesterday’s edition that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are just super, so on what grounds might anyone object to the title’s acquisition by the decidedly non-lossmaking BlackRock?