Far-Right Fears Hit the Netherlands: This Is How the Immigration File Overthrew Its Government

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced on July 7, 2023, that he would submit his resignation to King Willem-Alexander due to intractable disagreements within his ruling coalition, the latest of which was over the immigration file.

The collapse of the government coalition comes after a year and a half of rule, during which it was exposed to many difficult stations and obstacles that weakened it in light of the divergence of visions regarding many files that the leader of the governing center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Mark Rutte, dealt with as national security issues that cannot be resilient.

Thus, the Netherlands today is awaiting snap elections that will not take place before mid-November, which is looming over fears of the return of the far-right, led by anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, to the country’s political scene again.

Last year, the Netherlands faced a major scandal over overcrowded immigration centers, where a child died, and hundreds of people were forced to sleep outside.

The Netherlands already has one of the most stringent immigration policies in Europe, but under pressure from right-wing parties, Rutte has been trying for months to find ways to reduce the flow of asylum seekers.

Asylum applications in the Netherlands jumped by a third last year to about 47,000, and the government predicted that the number could increase to more than 70,000 this year, surpassing the highest number recorded in 2015.

 

Dutch Government Collapses

After only a year and a half in power, the government coalition in the Netherlands, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, collapsed on July 7, 2023, following disagreements between its pillars over the necessary measures to limit the flow of migrants.

Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the Netherlands, oversaw talks to resolve the crisis between the four coalition partners, which failed to reach an agreement, according to NOS and RTL channels.

The crisis in Dutch politics came after Rutte, 56, the leader of the center-right VVD party, pressed to curb the flow of asylum seekers into the Netherlands by tightening restrictions on family reunification of asylum seekers.

Last week, he demanded that the number of relatives of war refugees allowed to enter the Netherlands reach 200 per month; in addition to that, families must wait at least two years before being reunited, threatening to topple the government if the measure is not passed.

This proposal was difficult to obtain the support of two small parties in the ruling coalition, namely the Christian Union party and the Democrats 66 party.

Rutte has long been under pressure on the issue of immigration because of the power of far-right parties in the Netherlands.

Opposition parties also want snap elections to address problems they accuse Rutte of failing to adequately solve, from climate change to chronic housing shortages and the future of the agricultural sector.

The immigration file has been somewhat overshadowed by farmers’ protests against the Rutte government’s plans to reduce nitrogen emissions, a policy they say will lead to the end of many farms.

The Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) has become the largest party in the March provincial elections that decide the makeup of the Dutch Senate.

In the latest Ipsos poll, conducted a week before the government collapsed, the VVD party is projected to remain the largest party in the 150-seat Parliament with 28 seats. But the BBB party is expected to rise from just one seat now to 23, making it the second-largest party in Parliament.

The BBB party also supports a stricter immigration policy, proposing an annual cap of just 15,000 asylum seekers.

 

Strong Shocks

PM Mark Rutte met King Willem-Alexander in The Hague on July 8 and agreed to lead a caretaker government until new elections, expected in mid-November.

Rutte is the country’s longest-serving prime minister and has been in office since 2010. The current government - which took office in January 2022 - is his fourth coalition.

He said that he still had the energy for a fifth term, but a final decision would have to await consultations with his party.

As he may face internal competition amid growing voter fatigue from his long tenure, even if there are few prominent challengers.

Rutte and his ruling coalitions have recently been subjected to strong shocks, most notably the scandal of children’s benefits for ethnic minority families, which forced his previous government to resign collectively in 2021.

In 2017, he came under fire for flirting with the far right aimed at preventing Wilders from winning an election, as populist parties rose in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election as US president.

It is noteworthy that the Netherlands has been subjected to harsh human rights criticism due to what was described as discrimination and duplicity in dealing with immigrants.

While the kingdom is tightening its restrictions on the people of Arab, African, and Asian nationalities and the victims of the conflict zones, throwing them into the open, where there is no shelter or food, it opens its doors wide open for the Ukrainian refugees, in a scandalous scene par excellence.

In a letter addressed to the Dutch government on September 2, 2022, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, criticized the conditions faced by asylum seekers in the Netherlands.

She referred to the Ter Apel Center for receiving asylum seekers in the kingdom, as the capacity of the center does not exceed 2,000 people, while many more sleep in the open for several weeks without urgent or sufficient action from the Dutch government.

Mijatovic expressed her deep concern about these low humanitarian conditions, and denounced what she described as the stark difference in the discriminatory treatment given to Ukrainians compared to that granted to other nationalities.

In order to save money, the Rutte government had earlier reduced the number of staff and places in reception centers, which made the waiting time for processing asylum applications longer, thus delaying family reunification of asylum seekers.

On his part, Dutch-based activist Farouk Rifay said in a statement to Al-Estiklal that “the immigration crisis is not the only reason that led to the collapse of the government coalition in the Netherlands. Rather, it is added to other crises such as energy, environment, climate, material support, the economy, and prices that have become unbearable.”

He also pointed out that “far-right parties have begun to expand significantly in political life, whether at the level of the European Union or at the internal Dutch level.”

 

Far-Right Parties

The government’s collapse delighted Geert Wilders, the right-wing leader, who wrote on Twitter that its end would make the Netherlands a beautiful country again, with fewer asylum seekers and crime, more money and housing for our own people.

“We are the party that can guarantee a majority to significantly reduce the flow of asylum seekers,” Wilders added.

The far-right in the Netherlands, led by Party for Freedom (PVV), is waiting for the opportunity to jump on power again and return to the scene (it came third on the list of parties with the largest bloc in Parliament in 2010 and the second bloc in 2017) after years of popular and judicial exclusion.

Wilders was convicted by a Dutch court in 2016 due to his racist statements, in addition to his declining popularity over the past two years.

Some fear that the resignation of the Rutte government in this way will be a golden opportunity for Wilders to bring him back to the limelight again.

About a month ago, Wilders warned, through a video clip he posted on his Twitter account, of the increasing number of Muslims in the Netherlands.

As he documented the performance of dozens of worshipers inside a mosque in The Hague and commented on it, saying: “The Netherlands in 2023. Our streets are full of praying Muslims. The Netherlands is no longer the Netherlands.”

Hostility to Islam and Muslims represents the most prominent nerve in the electoral program of Wilders and his extremist party, which pledged in its 2021 program regarding the strategy of his rule, if he won the elections, to establish a Ministry of Purification from Islam.

He also pledged to define the Islamic religion as a totalitarian ideology, ban mosques and Islamic schools and prevent the spread of Islamic thought through the Holy Quran.

He is known for his continuous tweets offensive to Islam and the Islamic community in general. Twitter blocked his account in April 2022 over an Islamophobic tweet.