March 19, 2021 - 7:00am
Congratulations to Mark Rutte! He’s just won a fourth successive election victory and a fourth term as Prime Minister of the Netherlands. When Angela Merkel steps down later this year, Rutte will be Europe’s senior statesman.
And yet his latest victory may prove to be a hollow one.
To understand why, it helps to remember that Dutch politics is mad. That’s not a reflection on the Dutch people, but rather a consequence of an overly proportional electoral system. The share of the vote required to get a seat is less than 1% — this makes for an ever-lengthening list of parliamentary political parties.
The Dutch House of Representatives only has 150 seats, but this time they’re likely to be divided 17 ways.
The choice on offer is lavish. For instance, there are not one but two Green parties — the Green Left and the Party for the Animals (which has several seats despite Dutch animals not having the vote yet). Furthermore, as well as the Christian Democrats, there’s also the more overtly religious Christian Union and the uncompromisingly Calvinist SGP.
Right-wing populists also have a choice of three: Geert Wilders’ PVV, Thierry Baudet’s FvD and a breakaway faction from the FvD called JA21.
Other voter options include the Socialist Party, a pensioners’ party and a farmers’ party (who I hope won’t do anything untoward to the animals’ party).
Imagine forming a stable coalition out of that lot!
The third Rutte government was a coalition of four parties — Rutte’s own party, the VVD (conservative liberals); D66 (liberal liberals); the Christian Democrats and the Christian Union. It would make sense to get the gang together again for a fourth Rutte government, but there’s a catch.
The liberal liberals did rather well this time and the Christian Democrats rather badly. The latter may feel duty-bound to take themselves off into opposition, while the former might wish to kick out the socially conservative Christian Union and replace them with one or more parties of the Left. The trouble with that is that the Left-wing parties — especially the Socialists and the Green Left — got a pasting this time round. They’ll be in no mood to prop-up a Rutte administration.
Over on the Right, the populist parties gained seats over all, but the two liberal parties won’t want to get into bed with that lot. Rutte has tried that once already and it didn’t go well.
The situation leaves the VVD and D66 scrabbling around for junior coalition partners. Potential candidates include the once mighty, but now much diminished, Labour Party. There’s also Volt — a new group of EU super-fans. However, Rutte has reason to be wary of leading a distinctly pro-Brussels coalition.
In the wake of Brexit, he’s taken on the mantle of Europe’s Mister No — a role traditionally assigned to the British PM. He’s not a Nexiteer, but he is sceptical of further EU integration and decidedly cool on European ‘solidarity’ at Dutch expense.
So far, it’s worked well for him politically — not least in limiting the populist threat from the Right. However, it may have helped to mobilise pro-EU sentiment in the Netherlands, which this time has coalesced around D66 — Rutte’s indispensable (and now more powerful) coalition partner.
In all likelihood, Rutte will cobble together a new coalition — but he may have to sacrifice his already moderate Euroscepticism.
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SubscribeYou would have thought that a Farmers party and an Animals party could produce a “stable” coalition 🙂
The new MP for the Farmer’s Party (BBB) arrived in Den Haag in a tractor yesterday to be greeted by a sneering media (is there any other kind of media?)
They criticised her for only having won one seat. As she pointed out ‘It’s 100% more than no seats’.
Isn’t it an infinite % more than 0?
It’s even more than that 🙂
I reckon it’s infinite, but slightly beyond.
Well I was only quoting her. I agree, the maths are probably somewhat different.
No. it’s infinitely more than no seats.
To call the VVD “conservative liberal” and D66 “liberal liberals” betrays having missed a decade of Dutch politics. That is, unless I misunderstood the term “liberal” and the author is actually referring to US style “liberals”, i.e. left-wing progressives, of the kind that have taken over the Democratic Party. VVD is left-of-center (always pandering to woke capitalism and the upper echelons of the vast Dutch civil service; Rutte himself publicly acknowledging in 2020 that “we are all leftists now”) and D66 is hard-left-ultra progressive (pandering to the multi-culti immigration apparatus, denigrating the Dutch population as ‘deplorables’ and ); the only difference between them is how much of reality they deny and how hard they wish to mold society to their utopian wish dreams. There are no real conservative parties in present-day Dutch politics. Nor are there any (classical-)liberals. FVD’s Baudet may pose with pictures of de Tocqueville, but that is how far it goes.
I think this is a good summation of Dutch politics. No matter which party is dominant, the path for the country remains the same: quietly managing the people, while padding their bank accounts.
I apologise for my ignorance of Dutch politics (which you’ve ameliorated a little), but it sounds as though Dutch ‘Liberals’ are similar to the UK’s ‘Liberal’ ‘Democrats’, the most common phrase to be heard from whom is: “You can’t say that”. I very much doubt that any of them have ever read JS Mill.
Though the author has made it sound a bit crazy at least these political groups are upfront about their politics. Who would have thought giving a Conservative government a large majority has just enabled them them to make a worse brexit effort than Mrs May and seek to hamper Britain’s future with very green policies which were not discussed in 2019?.
Yes, a pretty good analysis. Everyone talks about how how the Left lost in this election, but D66 are very left-wing. VVD seem to me to pure globalist-corporatists.
The Dutch pay more per head into the EU than any other EU citizen. They have every right to feel short changed & as one Dutchman said to me a decade ago “I’m working until 67 so that Greeks can retire at 55”.
Well the D66 and Volt – both pro-EU – did very well. If the Dutch want to send their cash to southern Europe in perpetuity – an inevitable consequence of monetary union – they are free to do so.
Dutch politics is indeed highly entertaining. Even very small parties cannot prevent endless breakaways, witness FvD and JA21, various shenanigans at DENK etc.
Thierry Baudet of FvD is quite interesting. He is a little like Farage in that he is of the middle class, yet sees how the mainstream parties, media, EU, banks etc cheat the working classes, and he has the decency to side with the working classes. His Freedom Caravan was attended by more and more young people as election day approached, not least because he openly opposes the demented curfew and Covid regulations. Viewing figures on YouTube for these events doubled as the election approached. The FvD quadrupled its presence in parliament.
Baudet still lacks Farage’s easy manner and gift for communication, but has at least some ability to communicate pertinent facts and quite complex concepts to normal people. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of politicians, he has read some books* and can see the bigger picture.
*At one event he even discussed ‘The Fire Raisers’, that great play by Max Frisch. i don’t suppose there is another politician in western Europe who has read this play, or seen it performed.
I love your mental gymnastics.
Farage (your semi-hero?) was a failure as a broker (yes, he was), lost 7 (yes, 7!) runs for MP and when the time came he was pushed out of Brexit campaign. Oh and he never bothered to develop a plan for Brexit – his big lifetime project. After all that is the definition of responsibility.
And now he is (like a 4th rate broker that he was) pitching “wealth building” plans to fools and recording personalized messages for £65 a pop.
Nice to see you are alive and well Jeremy – but how about posting fewer point-scoring replies.
Mr Smith’s obviously still in great pain over the Brexit vote. It’s quite terrible how hatred and spite can rot one’s soul and drive one towards a lifetime of bitterness
Again, what was the name of that French Counting House (Tier1) that set fire to its Paris HQ, and nearly succeeded in doing the same to its Records Storage in, I think St Omer.
Incidentally when are you off to salubrious Luxembourg?
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Right now (EU rules) we are fine to be in London. Our back/middle office team is in Lux.
Internally (if we are forced to move out of London) I am lobbying hard for Berlin. Will see…
Credit Lyonnais, 1996, a bit before your time perhaps, but the scandal which spread to the US will make interesting bedtime reading!
Berlin would be an excellent choice as I am sure you are aware. Best of luck.
Never an MP, true. Yet Farage has had the most momentous effect on political events by a single individual in a generation. An effect felt not only in the UK but in the EU as well.
No Farage, there would have been no Brexit. That’s probably enough
And yet he is the most successful British politician of the modern era.
He won the referendum and got Britain out of the EU against the opposition and money of the entire British establishment.
What have you achieved in your life, Jeremy?
It never ceases to surprise me that people on the fringe of power can be ‘great’ but if they get into power they are ‘evil’.
It would be interesting to contrast the Dutch experience with the Israeli one. Like the Dutch the Israelis (120 seats) system was pure PR, and it also created chaos. One peculiarity, which helped forced change, was that Arabs tended to vote along clan, family, or village lines, meaning a myriad of tiny parties, all too small to get a seat, or at best, one, with only a few larger ones.
The system now has the qualifying threshold at 3.25%, which has forced smaller parties (especially the Arabs, and the orthodox Jewish) to merge together or form ‘joint-lists’.
The result is constant coalition, with a serious case of tail wagging the dog. It can also mean that the leader of a party with the largest score can not be the winner (which to be fair almost happened in the UK with Corbyn). However, it has given the Arabs far more presence than they had before.
How many British idiots would read this?
Not sure what you are getting at …..
A British Idiot’s ,,, guide
A British … idiot’s guide
What? The Bible perhaps?
Thirteen.