No Quarter: ‘Firebrand’ Dutch Far-Right Leader Offers Solutions But No Compromise 

Last month, Dutch far-right, anti-Islam, populist, Eurosceptic politician Geert Wilders was getting frustrated: He believed the conservative political coalition running the Netherlands was moving too slowly to crack down on migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. 

After all, his Party for Freedom (PVV) won 23 percent of the vote in the November 2023 election, the largest share, partly because of their hardline stance on the immigration issue. Meanwhile, their 37 seats were necessary to maintain the coalition’s majority, giving the party tremendous power. But their colleagues were dragging their feet in deploying the military to stop migrants and on measures to reject all new asylum seekers. 

As a result, Wilders pulled his Party for Freedom ministers from the coalition, collapsing the government. 

“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever,” including a proposal to “close the borders to asylum-seekers,” Wilders said. After his coalition partners refused to approve those plans, “I had no choice but to say: We rescind support for this Cabinet.”  

Other officials were dismayed at the timing. 

“I have told party leaders repeatedly in recent days that the collapse of the cabinet would be unnecessary and irresponsible,” said Prime Minster Dick Schoof in the emergency cabinet meeting. “We are facing major challenges both nationally and internationally that require decisiveness from us.” 

As the Guardian explained, Schoof offered to resign his position but then remained in office as a caretaker prime minister at the request of the Dutch King Willem-Alexander. New elections will likely be held in the fall.  

Until then, the Dutch have a lame-duck government. 

Wilders’ critics, meanwhile, are already claiming that his decision reflects how he’s not really interested in the hard work of politics and compromise to enact policy changes, wrote the Associated Press. “You turned your back on these people,” said Socialist Party lawmaker Jimmy Dijk during a recent parliamentary debate, referring to Party for Freedom voters who cast their ballots based on Wilders’ campaign platform. 

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, the American Enterprise Institute’s Stan Veuger. 

“Wilders pulled the plug on the first government that his party was allowed to fully participate in…(but) it is a government that should never come into existence,” wrote Veuger. “The nicest thing one can say about it is that it accomplished nothing, but even on these generous terms it is a strong candidate for worst postwar Dutch government.” 

In the meantime, Schoof has been busy. 

As he welcomed American President Donald Trump and European leaders for a NATO meeting in the Dutch city of The Hague last week, he also sealed a $586 million deal between the Dutch and Ukrainian defense industries to build 600,000 drones as well as provide a $200 million aid package for Ukraine to fund 100 drone-detection radars, 20 medical evacuation vehicles, and other equipment, according to Reuters. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in The Hague to thank Schoof personally, noted Ukrainian National News. 

Domestically, officials under Schoof have announced that children under age 15 should refrain from using social media like TikTok and Instagram, citing “psychological and physical problems among kids, including panic attacks, depression, and difficulties sleeping,” reported Euronews. 

Strengthening European security and stringent public health guidelines are not Wilders’ cup of tea, say analysts. But, he’s out of power, for now. Most expect him to return in some capacity. 

“He will try to create a narrative that it was the established parties and elite institutions that made it impossible for him to get things done,” Sarah de Lange, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam, told the Economist.  

However, there are 15 parties in the legislature. In this kind of politically fragmented landscape, the only way to get things done is to compromise, a skill he lacks, observers say. 

“Despite being a veteran opposition politician, he lacks a vital skill set in a system of proportional representation: he cannot compromise nor build coalitions,” wrote UnHerd, noting that his approval ratings have dropped dramatically since his party won the election. “The man often called a ‘firebrand’ has exploded what is likely to be his only shot at the Dutch government.”