The Europhilic, farmer-oppressing, climate cult-believing government of The Netherlands has fallen over immigration policies.
The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach a deal on restricting immigration, which will trigger new elections in the fall.
The crisis was triggered by a push by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party to limit the flow of illegal immigrants to the Netherlands, which two of his four-party government coalition refused to support.
“It’s no secret that the coalition partners have differing opinions about immigration policy. Today we unfortunately have to conclude that those differences have become insurmountable. Therefore I will tender the resignation of the entire cabinet to the king,” Mr. Rutte said in a televised news conference.
Tensions came to a head this week, when Mr. Rutte demanded support for a proposal to limit entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.
This latest proposal went too far for the small Christian Union and liberal D66, causing a stalemate.
Mr. Rutte’s coalition will stay on as a caretaker government until a new administration is formed after new elections, a process which in the fractured Dutch political landscape usually takes months.
News agency ANP, citing the national elections committee, said elections would not be held before mid-November.
Two parties poised to take advantage of Rutte’s coalition falling: The pro-farmer BBB Party, and Geert Wilders libertarian/anti-Islamist PVV.
Opposition parties in the Netherlands were pleased with the fall of the Rutte IV Cabinet. BBB frontwoman Caroline van der Plas tweeted a photo of herself smiling asking others to show the face they made when they heard the news.
“Goodbye Rutte, Kaag and the rest!” writes PVV leader Geert Wilders. He said he has requested a parliamentary debate.
PvdD leader Esther Ouwehand hopes for “the definitive end of the Rutte era.” She said, “Unprecedented that the prime minister created a new crisis in an attempt to save his own skin.”
Rutte’s government is the one that tried to seize land from farmers to prevent them from farming as part of their global warming/anti-meat/land seizure agenda. That government deserved to fall. Actually, what it deserved was having angry farmers armed with torches and hay rakes track members down in the streets and thrash them within an inch of their lives, but the Dutch haven’t been much in the revolution business since 1648.
From this remove, it would be nice if the elections could pave the way for a BBB/PVV Euroskeptic coalition focused on property rights, abandoning insane climate change mandates, restricting Islamist immigration, and protecting free markets and free speech. But European politics seldom proceeds along such (to us) logical lines.
Tags: Caroline van der Plas, Elections, Esther Ouwehand, Europe, Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB), Foreign Policy, Geert Wilders, Global Warming, immigration, Mark Rutte, Netherlands, Party for Freedom (PVV)
Is it just me, or is this the same way politics in Europe has been done since… ever? Minus the marching of troops/declarations of war and such.
The Dutch will elect another government of weenies and communists. Europe has been dying since WWI.
I know this a long shot, but what’ll those people do when the realize their fantasyland politics are just that?
The political class in Europe has always, always been a separate thing from the people. They view themselves as public masters, not public servants. And, the public goes along to get along, until it doesn’t.
Rutte ought to contemplate one incidental fact along the way: The Dutch are the only European nation to have eaten their own prime minister. That’s not some ancient thing, either: Johan de Witt met his fate in 1672.
Europe is a quiet place, a lot of the time. Then, it suddenly… Isn’t. The Dutch are considered some of the most civilized people on the face of the planet. Then, you learn about de Witt, and remember that those intransigent asshole Boers were originally Dutch colonists… As well as having been key contributors to the American Revolution. I’ve got some of those folks in my heritage, and they did not wind up where they did by being nicey-nice with the locals here in the Americas, nor did they play nice with the English. There’s a lot of upstate New York and Pennsylvania that’s covered in Indian and English blood thanks to those assholes. I’ve got family documents from the French and Indian War that would turn your hair white with all the things those guys did, and all while piously mouthing the good Calvinist doctrine of the times.
Were I one of the political class in the Netherlands, these days? I’d have a bolt-hole, a plan to get to it, and be carefully watching my back. Meat might well be back on the menu, in the form of whatever colloquialism you want to use for Prime Minister au jus…
Garrett: What will they do? Blame us.