Geert Wilders calls it quits and that will force elections.
Government Collapses
Wilder’s Freedom Party won the last election but without a sufficient majority to make him prime minister.
When the ruling coalition refused to go along with his anti-immigration requests, he pulled out of the coalition, collapsing the government.
10-Point Plan to Slash Immigration
The Wall Street Journal reports Far-Right Geert Wilders Torpedoes Dutch Coalition Over Immigration
The Dutch governing coalition collapsed Tuesday after far-right politician Geert Wilders pulled out of the ruling bloc, accusing the other parties of not doing enough to curb immigration and setting the stage for a possible snap election.
Wilders demanded last week that his coalition partners in the government of Prime Minister Dick Schoof sign a 10-point plan to slash immigration, including denying all new asylum requests and returning Syrian refugees now that the Middle Eastern country has a new government.
On Tuesday, Wilders announced on X that his party had quit the coalition. “We had no choice. I promised the voters the strictest asylum policy ever, but that was not granted to you,” he wrote.
Wilders, 61, is one of Europe’s most prominent and controversial politicians. He rose to prominence by warning of “an Islamic invasion” of Europe. He has called for the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and campaigned to ban the Quran and shutter mosques. He has also focused on immigration, saying that Dutch voters who want far lower levels are being ignored.
His election win in 2023 was built in part by focusing on living standards. He won broad support by arguing that high levels of migration were pushing up house prices and the availability of basic services, analysts said. Wilders played down some of his anti-Islam policies, such as calling for a ban on mosques and pledged to drop them to forge a coalition government.
Arguments over how best to control immigration have now brought down two successive Dutch governments, the first being then-Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s in 2023, said Jess Middleton, Senior Europe Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
In Germany, the AfD is leading in some polls for the first time since its creation in 2013. In the U.K., the Reform UK party, led by Brexit champion Nigel Farage, is also leading in the polls.
France’s far-right National Rally is the largest single party in the nation’s National Assembly, while the center-right Republicans and their allies hold 48 of the chamber’s 577 seats. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni became prime minister in 2022, backed by her populist party, Brothers of Italy.
Caretaker Government
The collapse of the government means New Elections on the Horizon.
Populist far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders plunged Dutch politics into turmoil Tuesday by withdrawing his party’s ministers from the ruling coalition in a dispute over a crackdown on migration. The remaining ministers will run a caretaker administration until new elections can be organized.
The decision means the Netherlands will have a caretaker government when it hosts a summit of NATO leaders in three weeks.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof held an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis and then visited King Willem-Alexander to offer him the resignations of ministers from Wilders’ Party for Freedom.
Schoof, a career civil servant who was handpicked by Wilders a year ago to lead the government, said he had repeatedly told coalition leaders in recent days that bringing down the government would be “unnecessary and irresponsible.”
“We are facing major challenges nationally and internationally and, more than ever, decisiveness is required for the safety of our resilience and the economy in a rapidly changing world,” Schoof said.
No date for a new election has been set, but it is unlikely before the fall.
About Geert Wilders (Wikipedia)
Wilders has campaigned to stop what he views as the “Islamisation of the Netherlands”. He has compared the Quran to Mein Kampf and has campaigned to have the book banned in the Netherlands. He advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries, and banning the construction of new mosques. His controversial 2008 film featuring his views on Islam, Fitna, received international attention and extreme criticism. He has been described in the media as populist and as a far-right politician. He was also described by the media as an Islamophobe. Wilders rejects being labelled as far-right and views himself as a right-wing liberal, saying he does not want to be “linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups”.
In the 2023 Dutch general election, the PVV [Wilders’ Freedom Party] won a quarter of the seats and became the largest party in the House of Representatives. The results of the election were described as “one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II”.
Views on Islam
Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam, summing up his views by saying, “I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam”. His brother Paul claimed in an interview that, in his private affairs, Wilders has no problems with Muslims. Although identifying Islamic extremists as 5–15% of Muslims, he argues that “there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’” and that the “Koran also states that Muslims who believe in only part of the Koran are in fact apostates”. He suggests that Muslims should “tear out half of the Koran if they wished to stay in the Netherlands” because it contains “terrible things” and that Muhammad would “… in these days be hunted down as a terrorist”. Wilders argues that Islam is not a religion, but rather a totalitarian political ideology such as communism and fascism.
In a speech before the Dutch Parliament, he stated: “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? Where is our Prime Minister in all this? In reply to my questions in the House he said, without batting an eyelid, that there is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered. Very many Dutch citizens, Madam Speaker, experience the presence of Islam around them. And I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, so‑called honour revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister’s Sharia mortgages, and the enormous overrepresentation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists.”
Views on the EU
Wilders is eurosceptic. In 2013, he along with Marine Le Pen teamed up in the European Parliament campaigning against the EU and the single currency, with Wilders calling the EU the “monster in Brussels”. He added “We want to decide how we control our borders, our money, our economy, our currency.” In a publicity stunt in 2014, Wilders vandalised the Flag of Europe with scissors in front of the Parliament in Brussels.
After the 2016 referendum in Britain, Wilders praised the result for the Brits and noted that the Netherlands should do the same; in a statement he said: “The Party for Freedom consequently demands a referendum on NExit, a Dutch EU exit”. During Dutch general and European elections, Wilders has campaigned for the right for the Dutch public to vote in a Nexit referendum on EU membership and has included this point in PVV election manifestos since the 2012 Dutch general election. Following the 2023 Dutch general election in which the PVV emerged as the largest party, Wilders stated that while he was still opposed to the European Union, he had suspended his call for Nexit during coalition talks with other political parties and would instead use his position to roll back and dismantle the powers of the EU from the inside.
Current Coalition
It’s mathematically easy to form a coalition without PVV.
But it’s very difficult in practice because it would take many parties on the Left and the Right to unify.
Can Wilders Win?
The more radical Wilder’s platform, the less likely he is to win. Banning the Quran and shuttering mosques is too radical for many.
Exiting the EU might be even more problematic.
But Wilders has already dropped radical versions of those ideas which is how his party won more votes than any other party. But more than any other party is insufficient.
Wilders needs to make the election more about inflation, housing, and domestic issues.
Wilders might “win” again, but that is not the real question. The correct question is if he can win enough votes where it would be hard not to make him prime minister and get more serious immigration reform.
From NL, and to clarify a bit: Wilders did not drop the government over immigration. He had a law up for vote to make rent increases illegal and that was about to fail spectacularly, because other parties saw the consequences (i.e. no investment in new rental housing). He then came with demands on immigration that his coalition partners could not accept (on the very same day his rent control law was shot down) and dropped the government under that pretence. He couldn’t take the rent control failure after also failing to limit personal contributions to health care payments ad after his own minister of immigration failed to bring any new law to a vote, due to shocking incompetence. This is the second time he runs away from responsibility within a year, in two tries. He will not be part of the government next time because other parties will not want to take that risk again.
I find it funny that no press covers him without mentioning that he’s “far right”. Mr. Starmer in the UK is arresting people for “offensive” social media reTweets and for exposing the coverup of the grooming gangs … but they don’t call him “Ar left” … even though he is at least as far left as Geert is right. Any idea why this is?
These migrants are totally unskilled and don’t want to work (their Govt benefits match or exceed entry salaries). What are they going to do with them, especially when they’re all young restless males?
You guys call Trump stupid, when the entire European Continent (the “elites” lol) engaged in this purely catastrophic experiment without any benefit in return.
After they tried Fascism and Nazism, now they’re trying this.
Some areas in Sweden have become warzones.
The elites are actually not. They follow popular memes pandered by the popular MSM. Many are plain grifters.
Wilders is absolutely correct about Islam.
Watch WIlders’ opponents tie him to Trump and cruise to an easy victory.
Libs always learn the hard way.
In one episode of a British crime series that was located in Amsterdam, the police officer was reluctant take action for fear of stoking ethnic riots. That’s the definition of failed state, and that was 20 years ago. You can imagine how divided the country is today, but Russia is the enemy.
These EU leaders are in for a rude awakening if they start a war with Russia and then find out that their young men are FAR more angry with their leadership at home than they are with Putin.
Putin didn’t let gangs of immigrants rape their 15 yr old girls. And the young men in Europe know this.
“In 2025, the surviving native-born British population seems to be increasingly trapped in an open-air penal colony formerly known as England.”
https://tomklingenstein.com/this-neutered-isle-britain-after-britain/
More proof that Europe is slowing moving to the right.
Nice job, Wilders! Bravo! Now start using MNGA as your campaign slogan!
There is an aspect to NATO recruitment efforts that goes unmentioned as is the nature of taboo topics:
What is extreme?
Wilders’ family has had to live incognito since 2004.
He himself has a security detail and his whereabouts remain subject to constant change and secrecy. You know, fatwa’s and all.
I find it interesting that immigration is such a key when, when, for me, AI / automation is a far more potent enemy.
It makes sense that people might feel immigration can be controlled while AI/automation feels unavoidable. People like to have someone to blame (and to be afraid of).
For me, the real issue is “when will a robot that can diagnose and repair any other robot appear”? (It seems for now let’s keep those that are not “like” “us” out)
Little is more threatening than losing your home country, as the culture, language, and people are transmuted into some globalist liberal mongrel potpourri even while the locals fail to produce the next generation.
You can’t stop AI. Anybody with 50k worth of gear can run any model… and software goes wherever it’s wanted.
I don’t know. ChatGPT has never demanded anyone be beheaded for drawing a cartoon. Its about keeping a group of nutballs out, the majority of which in some countries believe a proper punishment for apostasy is death. The right number of such people is zero.
Go read up on the details of 12 yr olds raped in the UK by immigrant gangs and then tell me when is AI going to be a threat to carry out those brutal assaults
“Wilders needs to make the election more about inflation, housing, and domestic issues”.
The Islamification of The Netherlands IS the overriding domestic issue. The others are economic and come and go from time to time. They can be delt with realistically. Wilders is right, but some people refuse to see what they don’t want to see.
Thank God for the Atlantic and the Pacific. But Biden found a way to bring them here anyhow. Just fly them in and turn them loose. The Colorado incident should enlighten you.
“Thank God for the Atlantic and the Pacific.”
Didn’t do much good to keep eurpeans from invading the Americas so why should that stop anyone else?
It’s all part of god’s plan….”the meek shall inherit the earth” and all that….
oh … let’s play a game … were the indigenous americans wrong for trying to defend and preserve their culture and way of life after it became clear that the europeans were here to stay and take over?
They were not wrong for defending themselves (though tribes were fighting each other regularly). And then they were overtaken. In the beginning, the Europeans were very few and seemed harmless, often choosing areas to settle that were pretty crappy. The natives didn’t see them as a threat in the beginning – they didn’t know the population of Europe and how many could eventually arrive.
Muslim population in France has a scandalously high birth rate, and they keep coming. The traditional population is declining. France is over.
The more fanatical the religion, the higher the birthrate among their (enslaved) women.
The Europeans were able to take over because of the diseases they brought with then. Smallpox was a potent weapon used to decimate native populations. History is written by the victors.
history is written by historians. if your unsolicited statements are no more intellectually rigorous than those found on bumper stickers, I highly encourage you to keep them to yourself.
Banning the Koran and closing mosques is extreme, but wanting to prevent the Islamization of Europe isn’t. I don’t see many Europeans getting into rafts and trying to sail to the Middle East.
The issue is one group is dying out and the other is expanding. You do the math and figure out which is which.
Here is a hint:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age
Yeah but they are not going to go to zero so there is no worry about that.
It’s fine to reduce population in an effort to reach a sustainable steady state. At some point that MUST happen because every country and the world will reach resource limits.
The idea that population must continue to grow so we must import people to meet that growth is insane.
“The idea that population must continue to grow…”
That’s not my idea, that’s the idea of central planning masters that advocate for economic systems that can’t survive without growth.
I didn’t create this system, I just profit from it and optimize my life experiences from it.
fortunately growth can come from either more workers or increased productivity. Third world islamic neanderthals are not necessary.
You’re going to profit from it even at the risk of the women in your family being raped for dressing immodestly in public?
Europe will not survive Islam with the current trend. It’s not the first time (Muslim armies once almost reached Vienna), but this time one side is not fighting. I see at least one European country becoming a quasi-Islamic Republic within the next 10 years. There will be no law for mandatory head scarf, but they will gradually impose it as a social norm through social media. Current Europeans have no living culture of their own to oppose it.