This sounds like healthy democracy to me where new parties emerge to represent groups of people who’ve felt neglected.
But the “professor of political pluralism” says the BBB has “far right leanings”. And yet I see nothing in this article to support that view.
Rutte is committed to WEF and UN. That is where he gets his anti- agriculture fervour from.
About time there was more discussion regarding the WEF and the UN’s Agendas 21 and 50.
The Netherlands is almost completely run by the WEF agenda. ‘You will own nothing and be happy’: this completely describes what’s going on in Holland; the Dutch are nice people, but very naive and sheltered. I was (pleasantly) surprised that the BBB has become so popular. I guess some of them, especially those who live in the provinces, are waking up to what’s going on around them.
Jerry Carroll
5 months ago
I think the Unherd writers should give a sabbatical to the term “hard-right.” It is impugning a large and growing swath of the population in the West. It is LazyThink by left-wing scribblers.
which party officials refused to have costed by independent economists
What a strange aside, nothing in the article is explicit about high-cost policies. Maybe the alluded to stronger social security is what the author is thinking of?
As for independent economists, lol, where are they going to find those? The only truly independent economists are investment bank and hedge fund employees. If you’re thinking of academics pretending to be independent, well of course they won’t ask them, why would they? They might as well go ask their biggest political opponents for permission to exist. Academic economists have a track record of total failure anyway, they don’t understand economics well and certainly wouldn’t be independent when it comes to questions of politics.
Letting ‘independent economists’ decide policy was how we all ended up on this sinking ship of globalism in the first place. May as well ask the Pope which religion is correct.
Jeremy Bray
5 months ago
I have always been in favour of electing a single party with a clear electoral program in the first past the post system and distrusted the coalition building of proportional representation but perhaps we do need a pr system to break the logjam of the two current main UK parties with similar statist left of centre policies. It would be good to see additional common sense parties like Reform and the SDP having a bit more influence, as seems to be happening in Holland. Of course the danger is that the small extreme parties wag the coalition dog as seems to be the case in Israel.
Rory McGregor
5 months ago
Why no mention of Geert Wilders’ party (PVV) . They overtook the BBB in the polls back in September and are now polling 4th with twice the vote share of the BBB. Wilders has now had much more air time on Dutch MSM than I have seen in the last 20 years …..
Mark Goodhand
5 months ago
From what I understand, Dutch agriculture is unreasonably intensive.
Factory farming is a stain on humanity, and the sooner we can move away from it, the better. Let’s eat meat, but good quality meat that’s been grown the traditional way, with minimal suffering.
That said, the Dutch ruling elite is at least as bad as our own. I’d support BBB if I could.
Wim de Vriend
5 months ago
The author seems unaware that in the 1950s there was a Boerenpartij (farmers’ party) that drew quite a few voters who were tired of the establishment politicians. But it didn’t last very long.
This sounds like healthy democracy to me where new parties emerge to represent groups of people who’ve felt neglected.
But the “professor of political pluralism” says the BBB has “far right leanings”. And yet I see nothing in this article to support that view.
For the average academic ‘far right’ equates to moderate social democrat.
Just to mention the ‘I’ word is far right, silly.
They are dead right about Timmermans. The last thing we need is a politician that looks up to Greta Thunberg.
Actually, Rutte seemed eager to emulate her too, considering his disastrous proposal to quash Dutch agriculture.
Rutte is committed to WEF and UN. That is where he gets his anti- agriculture fervour from.
About time there was more discussion regarding the WEF and the UN’s Agendas 21 and 50.
The Netherlands is almost completely run by the WEF agenda. ‘You will own nothing and be happy’: this completely describes what’s going on in Holland; the Dutch are nice people, but very naive and sheltered. I was (pleasantly) surprised that the BBB has become so popular. I guess some of them, especially those who live in the provinces, are waking up to what’s going on around them.
I think the Unherd writers should give a sabbatical to the term “hard-right.” It is impugning a large and growing swath of the population in the West. It is LazyThink by left-wing scribblers.
Good to see you have sobered up Caroll.
What a strange aside, nothing in the article is explicit about high-cost policies. Maybe the alluded to stronger social security is what the author is thinking of?
As for independent economists, lol, where are they going to find those? The only truly independent economists are investment bank and hedge fund employees. If you’re thinking of academics pretending to be independent, well of course they won’t ask them, why would they? They might as well go ask their biggest political opponents for permission to exist. Academic economists have a track record of total failure anyway, they don’t understand economics well and certainly wouldn’t be independent when it comes to questions of politics.
Letting ‘independent economists’ decide policy was how we all ended up on this sinking ship of globalism in the first place. May as well ask the Pope which religion is correct.
I have always been in favour of electing a single party with a clear electoral program in the first past the post system and distrusted the coalition building of proportional representation but perhaps we do need a pr system to break the logjam of the two current main UK parties with similar statist left of centre policies. It would be good to see additional common sense parties like Reform and the SDP having a bit more influence, as seems to be happening in Holland. Of course the danger is that the small extreme parties wag the coalition dog as seems to be the case in Israel.
Why no mention of Geert Wilders’ party (PVV) . They overtook the BBB in the polls back in September and are now polling 4th with twice the vote share of the BBB. Wilders has now had much more air time on Dutch MSM than I have seen in the last 20 years …..
From what I understand, Dutch agriculture is unreasonably intensive.
Factory farming is a stain on humanity, and the sooner we can move away from it, the better. Let’s eat meat, but good quality meat that’s been grown the traditional way, with minimal suffering.
That said, the Dutch ruling elite is at least as bad as our own. I’d support BBB if I could.
The author seems unaware that in the 1950s there was a Boerenpartij (farmers’ party) that drew quite a few voters who were tired of the establishment politicians. But it didn’t last very long.