November 23, 2023 - 10:15am
The dam is breached. The “shock election victory” of Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) will reverberate through all of Europe. The Dutch people decided to cast their vote for the Right-wing firebrand — and massively so, at least considering the conditions of the country’s parliamentary system. With a notoriously high number of political parties participating in elections, 23% of votes going to the PVV still qualifies as a political earthquake.
It means that the party will more than double its numbers in parliament, most likely ending up with 37 seats out of 150. It also means, however, that the PVV still falls short of the 76 seats needed for Wilders to become prime minister. So, despite all the celebrations, it will probably be months of negotiations before a new government is sworn in, and whether his party will be part of it remains an open question.
Either other Right-of-centre parties will drop their opposition to working with Wilders, or they will persuade him to support a government without being part of it (similar to the role the Sweden Democrats play in Stockholm). Alternatively, there will be new elections. At this point it is simply too soon to tell.
One thing, though, has become clear. The people of Western Europe are losing their hesitancy when it comes to voting for Right-wing parties, and Wilders’s success is most likely only the beginning. Austria has elections next autumn, and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) is poised to become the strongest force in parliament for the first time in history. Although it has a similar name to its Dutch counterpart, the FPÖ is economically more statist. It does, however, broadly agree with Wilders’s rejection of mass immigration and his views on Islam.
In Germany, meanwhile, the AfD has fortified second place in the polls, and with Right-wing parties surging in neighbouring countries, it will become increasingly difficult for the conservatives to refuse to cooperate at a local and federal level. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) is the country’s most trusted party according to recent polls, and her personal image among voters has been improving significantly.
Wilders’s placing in the election was highly unlikely a few months ago. If this is the beginning of a trend, Western Europe has to prepare for the aftershocks. An FPÖ victory in Austria in the autumn of 2024 will boost the AfD’s elections prospects for 2025, which in turn will energise the Le Pen campaign in 2027. Simultaneously, the isolation of figures such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban will become harder to maintain, as it will be easier for him to find like-minded members in Western European governments. The Dutch dykes have broken, and it looks like a wave of Right-wing populism is coming for the rest of Europe.
Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.
Raphfel
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SubscribeUnfortunately this is what happens when mainstream politics ignores, insults and patronises large numbers of the electorate. They eventually grow indifferent to being demonised as “deplorables” and turn to someone who they perceive gets it.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of immigration, the refusal of so many politicians to engage constructively with the genuinely-held concerns of their voters was always likely to lead to this.
You are so correct!
Precisely, and the power elite never seem to get it. They created Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Donald Trump, even the “intellectual dark web”. None of these would have been necessary had there had been honest media and honest governance.
Apparently, they are incapable of learning, only repeating.
WHat’s wrong with Fox News or Donald Trump or the intellectual dark web (except for the atheism of course)? The real problem is that that have become the BBC, CBC, NYT, WaPO, NBC, MSNBC…they have become radical progressives, and BLM supporting, gender-bending deniers of biology and natural law. It’s what they are and have become that is the problem.
The intellectual dark web was named and created by the left and consists mostly of those despised by the left. It is a standard tactic of the left: apply a name with negative connotations (racist, sexist, islamaphobe, transphobe, homophobe) to deter people from listening to more than one side of an argument. The name intellectual dark web suggests members have gone over to the dark side.
The name was created in a casual offhand manner by Eric Weinstein.
Oh, thank you. I guess it was how the left perceived him amongst others.
The name was intended more as a self-deprecatory in-joke than a serious announcement of a movement. It was really just an umbrella term for a bunch of people with very various views who were capable of disagreeing with one another politely without resorting to the usual schoolboy denunciations of one’s opponents as ‘Nazis’.
I believe one of its other members (or maybe it was Weinstein himself again) speculated that “Ineffectual Dork Web” might be more appropriate a clarification of what IDW stood for.
Because they don’t care – immigration creates insoluble problems that facilitate the institution of an increasingly repressive state, which suits established wealth
The ‘power elite’ indeed seem to be slow learners. If you try looking up ‘deplorables’ in the index of Hillary Clinton’s post-2016 election book, What Happened, you’ll find no entry. Evidently, Ms. Clinton still has no idea what happened, and her political sympathizers have never acknowledged the role they played in facilitating Trump’s rise in the first place, never mind drawn any strategic lessons from it. They still go out of their way to demonize, insult and ridicule half the electorate.
Unfortunately when a politician offer policies that the public want the public vote for them
Please rephrase coherently
Suspect the word “vote” is missing, two words from the end. The sentence then becomes both coherent and correct.
Sorry. Done
James below was right
Bingo!
And the immigration law being discussed in the French parliament will pave the way for Marine Le Pen in 2027.
At stake is a paragraph that allows to legalise illegal immigrants if they work in a field that experiences shortages…….like the hospitality industrie.
Simple trick…..enter the country illegally…….get yourself a waiter, dishwasher job……go to the Prefecture with a letter from the boss…..job done.
2027 is going to such a wake up call for these guys !!!! Still, I can already hear them dismissing Wilders score. European elections are going to be fun to watch in France.
It was the same in Sweden, no one would listen to the Democrats……and now ?? well, smell the coffee !!
It doesn’t really matter if Widers becomes PM, they will never be able to rule without his party, same as in Sweden
The label populist gets slapped as an insult on anyone not beloved of the elite, however the whole point of democratic elections is for people to vote for the politician they most trust to represent their views and address their issues. “Populists” should win every election.
Bingo! History amply confirms that when moderate voters realize their interests and concerns are being ignored by centrist parties they normally support, they become far more susceptible to siren voices at the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
Just like the handling of grooming gangs and clerical child abuse; you can marginalise, obfuscate and dismiss people’s concerns – and it appears to work and shore up the edifice for years sometimes – but the rot is spreading through the system until it collapses ‘unexpectedly’ and everybody is shocked and surprised.
Anyone to the right of hand-wringing, virtue-signalling Gary Lineker is described in the media as fascist.
“Right-wing populism is coming for the rest of Europe”.
What absolutely splendid news but NOT to for burnt out, feeble minded Britain sadly.
The British people are not feeble minded – they started the ball rolling in 2016 when they removed themselves from EU Freedom of Movement in order to reduce immigration numbers and handed the Tories a big majority in 2019 so they could stem the tide.
Unfortunately the ruling class doesn’t think this is a good idea and it seems that is what counts. We are yet to see whether the Dutch, French, German and Italian elites can neuter their own people as effectively.
My apologies, I should have been more specific and said the feeble minded self styled elite who temporarily rule over us.
There’s hope yet when Nigel emerges from the jungle.
True!
Don’t get too excited, Charles. This is an anti-incumbent phenomenon, not a left vs right phenomenon.
Woke progressivism is incumbent everywhere and has been for decades
You’re right I’m afraid, the ‘triumph of hope over expectation’.
Time for another Ovaltine!
Sadly the U K will next year have a left wing woke pro immigration government which wishes to rejoin the E U whilst the rest of Europe seems to be heading in the opposite direction!
Historically we do have rather a habit of doing that.
I do not know. If it can be shown as high status the British will vote for it in droves
Are there any populist politicians there?
Charles, you may not realise this but these people are thugs and murderers – if not themselves, then their close associates.
Look at the person who knifed Jo Cox.
Perhaps you don’t remember a little event called World War 2?
Or perhaps you think we should have all cosied up to HItler. Because from another post of yours, I’m getting the impression that you are none too fond of my semitic brethren.
Believe me when I tell you that even you might not enjoy living in Orban’s Hungary – for one thing, a site like this would be monitored for off colour jokes about leadership figures or your neighbours could dob you in for buying a foreign cigar.
You live in a relatively free country. Please appreciate that.
Why is this result a surprise to anyone?
The EU obsessed European governments have stuck their technocratic heads in the sand, turning the economic thumbscrews in the name of green policies, in the process riding roughshod over ordinary people.
Well, now comes the reaction.
Don’t count those chickens yet. His party must form a coalition and the ever-virtuous Dutch elite will do all they can to obstruct him. After all, there is that all important position of moral leadership on the world stage to consider. The ‘international community’ will (of course) be scandalised that so many Dutch citizens are not eager to pay the price for the elite’s ostentatious compassion.
What was the Dutch Republic’s attitude to their Jews in WW II?
Did that “ever-virtuous Dutch elite”, to use your excellent turn of phrase, perform well? Did they for example “display ostentatious compassion” and if NOT why NOT?
I gather at the other end of the world, the Dutch East Indies in fact, ‘they’, the self styled elite, in fact performed very poorly in the period 1945-1948/9.
Do you their emergence from three years of Japanese barbarity would have been a factor?
It cannot have helped.
Yes,the Dutch SS division and Prince Berhardt the Queens consort and SS officer for a start.
Ostentatious compassion has been gaining momentum in the West at least since the mid 1960s. The triumph of sentiment over intelligence – culminating in that contemporary cultural aberration dubbed ‘Woke’.
Amusing (in a depressing sort of way) when you see once revolutionary Left wing intellectuals/writers looking on in despair at this phenomenon and unwilling to admit that their own proselytising prepared the ground.
Warning shot? I hope it’s the starting pistol.
“Prepare to repel boarders!”:as the Navy used to say.
‘Left hand down a bit.’ is the one I remember.
I wonder if people marching in the streets for Hamas influenced Dutch citizens who voted for Wilders.
The media gives a false impression of the political strength of the Left, so they are always shocked when the people vote for the populist Right. Neo-liberal capitalism has left the working class behind, and the middle class drowning in debt. People turn to populists because there is no one else. It remains to be seen if the populists will help them. Trump did very little in his first term except cut taxes and gripe about his crowds. The economy may have been better, but no serious structural change occurred.
What is truly stunning however is how the college educated, upper middle class Left, year after year and lose after lose, has refused to acknowledge what is happening, preferring instead to disparage everyone as racist, misogynist, and transphobic and further alienating the voters they need to win elections. Their willful blindness is going to put Trump back in the White House.
Republicans have lost the popular vote in the US in every election except one since 1988. (please be a Trumper and tell us how he actually won in 2020 – I would love that!)
The Tories in the UK are about to get annihilated.
Canada has elected Trudeau three times.
France has elected Macron twice. Poland just rejected the right wing extremists. And so on and so on.
I guess you could go to Budapest or now Buenos Aires to get your conservative fix but otherwise you don’t have many options.
The only people who lose after lose are you lunatics. Enjoy it, bud!
I used to be a Democrat, until I came to believe there is little difference between Democrats and traditional Republicans, just as there is little difference between Labor and Conservatives. All are beholden to their corporate masters. I also was repelled by the meanness of liberals like you. Your assumptions about me only make you look foolish. A true socialist, champagne, or otherwise hasn’t won an election since the sixties in Britain and has never won one in America.
The last three Democratic Presidents in America have only had congressional majorities for two years and spent the rest of their terms passing Republican legislation like Clinton or issuing executive orders that were quickly rescinded by their successor like Obama. That’s not winning. Another fact that doesn’t get through to liberals and Democrats is that you can’t change America with 51% of the vote; 51% is fine for Republicans who don’t want to change anything.
I always thought Trump was a con man. He proves my point, however, that when you ignore people, as the left has, they will vote for anyone but you.
You say “beholden to their corporate masters” like it’s a bad thing….
Spot on.
So you are now saying that liberals don’t actually “lose after lose” but that they just don’t win big enough for your tastes.
That’s quite the reversal, bud!
What is this ‘bud’ thing? It sounds cracker to me. Am I right?
Ignore him he is a troll.
Don’t count on a fourth Trudeau victory! His numbers aren’t looking good.
Wrong, the conservative Pis party got 35% of the vote. More than Tusk. Its just the left wing losers will band together to scrape together a majority. A bit like Germany. Three loser parties SPD, Gruene and FDP.
No, the republicans won the popular vote in the majority of the states in the electoral college. We don’t believe in mob rule.
Trudeau is skating on thin ice….
I would prefer DeSantis…but will secretly smile if the liberals get their noses tweaked yet again, I don’t believe Trump will win though. The establishment will stop at nothing to get rid of him.
Bernie Sanders was doing pretty well in the US elections but due to their ingrained fear of anything resembling socialism (even a health system which might stop uninsured people from being left to die untreated) it didn’t progress.
Occupy was popular everywhere – the problems it addressed have been hijacked by the right wing populists just as socialism was hijacked by the Nazis.
Whether Boris Johnson or Orban, it is doubtful that right wing populists would ever protect the financially vulnerable from the ravages of neo liberal corporate Capitalism – that can’t be achieved in one country anyway and all parties lie about that.
It really is not hard .
The People do not want any immigration. None.
They have observed that adding a large amount of extra population that is low paid -mostly low or no tax payers- makes their countries poorer in per capita terms. They never voted for it they never wanted it. And politicians promised to stop it and lied.
It is not “right Wing” to object to immigration.
Billy presumes to speak for “The People” when of course he only speaks for himself and other racists. I suspect he is a BIG Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson fan.
Ah. There we go. Let’s brand someone a racist. That will end that discussion.
The question of immigration has been turned into a binary yes (you’re a good person) or no (you’re a racist) debate.
The question I would ask anyone who is pro immigration is this.
How much is too much?
No one is willing to answer that question with anything approaching honesty.
All I hear is “blah blah blah you’re a racist for even asking that!”
Ignore him, you can’t have reasonable arguments with trolls.
And what about the British who go to work and live abroad? Would you curtail that as well? Especially if they are skilled? Do you believe they should be compelled to keep their skills at home?
This idiotic opinion is clearly that of the stupid people. The Muslims are coming for you and your, dimbot.
Yes I’m against all of it now. People come to the US to make money, they care nothing for our history or culture nor do their descendants. My country is more than an economic zone.
Right or Left doesn’t really matter. The numbers don’t lie. In country after country immigration is way up compared to twenty or thirty years ago. And a lot of voters are unhappy about it.
I heard there was this new-fangeled thing called Democracy. Maybe we should give that a try.
ok, so who should we deport from England – everyone who is not Anglo saxon. Are you in favour of deporting everyone related to immigrants (which would be me)
In fact, if you got what you wanted and had zero immigration,unskilled working class people would rediscover the fact that their wages are low because it is a principle of right wing economics to keep them so – and they might start coming for the real parasites then.
How do the feral elite enrich themselves if not at the expense of average working people, regardless of their birthplace or antecedents?
Immigrants are not responsible for zero hours contracts (many so called middle class professions such as education and media use these) or lousy working conditions. They are an effect – not a cause.
Immigrants are not responsible for the fact that Thatcher flushed British industry down the toilet in order to conduct her vindictive vendetta against unions.
As for numbers, one true demographic strain is coming from the increasing numbers of the elderly. Yet I do not hear demands to have them pushed out onto ice floes in order to protect the NHS from collapsing.
Of course elderly non immigrant people are often treated like absolute dirt in this country which is why so many Brits go to Spain in their twilight years, a country where the over sixties are not routinely despised or shunted into homes where staff leave them to fester in their own urine.
You could call them asylum seekers actually – seeking asylum from how the British deal with the older generation.
And you can demonise immigrants all you like, but I know from experience that the majority of them do not treat their own family members like this.
I find it baffling how our leaders seem powerless or unwilling to make meaningful change to immigration and cultural issues.
What do they think will happen?!
Europe and the UK has been led by lambs. The worry is, what will the wolves be like when they appear?
I share that worry.
Discontented as we all are with our current leadership, sometimes I fear the ‘European Project’ will come to be seen one day as a greater Weimar. A failed hyper liberal progressive project foisted on an unwilling or unwitting demos.
The difference with 1933 and today is that this Weimar is continent-wide and comes with near unlimited potential liability for all the peoples of Europe at once. When the reaction comes, as it always seems to come, with the Consulate replacing the Directory, the domestic conflagration and political and ethnic strife will be compounded from the Thames to the Vistula.
Never forget, it is only 8 Miles from Goethe’s Weimar to the gate of Buchenwald.
And we still have the same elites as we had before WW1 and WW2
“Buchenwald” was NOT an Extermination Camp.
?
So that’s alright then? Ffs. Buchenwald was a forced labour camp where a fifth of the prisoners were worked to death. After the war until 1950, Stalin used it as an internment camp where a quarter of the prisoners died.
Do you think it was a Butlins, Charles? Were there redcoats and wet t shirt competitions?
He toned down alot of his usual rhetoric during the campaign, including things like stating explicitly he knew no overall Dutch appetite for a Brexit equivalent etc. It paid off. But it’s 33% of those who voted and way off a majority. We’ll see now if he can do ‘politics and policy design/implementation’ or limited to rhetoric and slogans.
Some of the concerns about immigration, and perhaps more so assimilation, is legit and if politicians get the language right, dial down the demonisation, they get a broader constituency who welcome sensible immigration but want assurance on liberal western values being paramount and an obligation.
23.7% not 33%.
It will be enormously difficult for other EU countries to leave the EU, as they have adopted the Euro. Fools, imo.
Everyone will go the opposite direction to the incumbent being blamed for the coming collapse. UK will go (more) left unfortunately…
Can’t wait for the great brexit switcheroo when the lefties want to keep us out of fascist Europe….
Gee I wonder why this is happening
We’ve all had enough; if we’re racist now we certainly weren’t a decade or two ago
Enough of the dilly-dallying. It’s time to round up the illegals, and either dump them in the Med or put them on an old junk ship to go whereever they wish, so long as it is not European.
No country is required to commit suicide by accepting even more of the Ancient Enemy, the Muslim illegals. For 1000 years, muslims have attempted to conquer Europe. Now, thanks to the idiot Merkel, they have been admitted to the countries in mass numbers. True to historical precedent, they come with mal-intent, raping, murdering, pillaging. GET THEM OUT!!!
Yes, I had that Sadiq Khan trying to murder, rape and pillage in my back garden yesterday. And the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens. So much more rapey than anti Muslim Donald Trump
For the world. We are about to experience a wave of Islamist terrorism in Western societies, originating not from outside but from within. They will have the sympathy, if not support, of the radical left, while the resulting backlash will drive domestic politics even further to the right. The center cannot hold.
[OT: This is my first post in these forums. How can I change my screen name? I see no way to do it on my profile page. Would appreciate any help.]
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I don’t understand European political parties; coalitions appear to be obstructive resulting in absolutely nothing getting done.
So none of the countries mentioned has actually elected any of these far right clowns?
Some wave! LOL!
At last you are becoming sensible, rather than just insulting. As you know, this is a right-wing site of (mainly) old men. Now you should try putting forward some positive ideas.
Underneath all the adolescent sneering and knee jerk labeling of anyone not woke as being a Trump stooge and/or racist, AssPain Bolshevist has no positive ideas. He’s just another would be petty authoritarian dressing up his odious lust for power with specious, illogical and incoherent claims of moral virtuousness. In other words, a typical Gen Z wokie.
Um, pardon me for asking how do you get right wing old men to go for positive ideas (that are not racist, misogynist, homophobic etcetera) I really must go back into Hope Not Hate’s website to see how they do it.
Still only 24.7% of the seats. Not much of a ‘victory’.
The PVV got 23.7% of the vote, or 2.4 million votes. In a country with 15 million adults, and an electorate of 13.3 million. So less than 1 in 6 Dutch sitizens people voted for Wilders. That’s more a reflection on the Nederlands voting system than the Dutch people. Would we reasonably also say that 5 out of 6 Dutch people reject Wilders and his policies? So not really a Right Wing wave at all. Right Wing parties and policies are only standing out as the Centre and Left have lost focus.
ETA: hilarious to see the down-voting of my comment. Did you all not do Maths at school? I blame the education system when people think that 23.7% of the vote is a resounding victory! That’s 5% less than Corbyn got in 2019!
Maybe you are being down voted because of your ignorance of the workings of a multi-party parliamentary system. I suggest you re-read the article.
That is a good point. It certainly makes me happy that no country that I am a citizen of has a similar political system to the Netherlands.