Far-Right Wins the Dutch Elections

February 7, 2024

Fabian Johan

In the recent Dutch elections held on 22 November, Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) received 2,450,878 votes and took 37 seats in the 150 strong parliament. To many, this was a surprise, as the bourgeois media and the polls had been predicting a victory for the centre-right NSC and VVD parties. While both still took many seats (20 for NSC and 24 for the VVD), this is the first time that a far-right party won the Dutch elections. What does this election result mean for the class struggle in the Netherlands and Europe? How did it happen and how should revolutionaries respond to it? How should we approach the coming period and how can working people in the Netherlands fight back against the coming administration?

How did the Far-Right win the elections?

Thirteen years of Mark Rutte and the VVD resulted in a very insecure situation for the majority of working people in the Netherlands. Rutte sold off huge amounts of public housing to real estate companies, resulting in extremely expensive rents and a lack of affordable housing. Since Rutte first took office in 2010, working people in the Netherlands have seen their health care costs rise each year, less investment in culture and recreation, and a very unstable job market. Workers in the Netherlands are used to low-paid, flexible contracts that provide no job security. The social security system has been entirely dismantled, and those who claim benefits are treated like criminals. Someone who asks for a ‘bijstandsuitkering’ (similar to Universal Credit in the UK), must meet regularly with their case manager, accept whatever rubbish work is offered, and even work for free if the council asks it. Rutte also introduced tuition fees, making education very expensive and leaving many students with high levels of debt. Rutte’s VVD expressed the organised war on the working class through a neoliberal transformation of the state.

During the elections, the primary issues that parties campaigned around were migration, social security, housing and government transparency. The elections were a result of the fall of the VVD dominated coalition, which broke due to major differences over immigration policy. Mark Rutte and the VVD advocated a two-tiered approach to asylum seekers, which placed them into two categories: those fleeing a war and those fleeing due to discrimination or oppression. They argued that the former would lose their residence permit as soon as the situation in their country improved, while the latter would be allowed to continue living in the Netherlands. Additionally, the VVD advocated a stricter approach to family reunions, arguing for a quota system that would limit the monthly intake of families of refugees. The other parties in the coalition, such as D66 and CU, were against such a harsh immigration policy, disbanded the government and new elections resulted.

Weakened workers’ movement

A major reason why the PVV was able to win was a weakened trade union movement. In the Netherlands, only 16% of working people are members of a union, and they are only organised in a few major industries, such as education, transportation, and logistics. The primary union, the FNV, regularly leads strikes in the transport sector and has managed to win better terms and conditions for its members. However, the union is organised in a highly bureaucratic way. Although it organises social events for members, a yearly May Day action, and conferences on important issues, the FNV does not make significant attempts to strengthen rank and file organisation. There are no regular union meetings where members can voice their concerns, influence union policy, and play an active role in the union. Instead, union power is centralised in the hands of cadres, who make all the main decisions and run the union. They range from advisors in union halls that give legal advice to members, to organisers that recruit new members, to strike negotiators.

During strikes, there is rarely a picket line; rather, members are just asked to stay home. When train workers go on strike, the union does not try to engage the community, explaining why it is on strike and organising solidarity committees. Besides this, union bureaucrats often decide when workers go on strike rather than the workers. As a result, many people in the Netherlands perceive the strikes as an annoyance and are hostile to the workers. Such a bureaucratic organisation has left the working people of the Netherlands without a strong union through which they can fight for their interests beyond immediate economic and sectoral issues. Even though layers of active union members engage in political actions or international solidarity, there is very little mass political campaigning and actions by the unions and hardly any strikes or other workers’ actions beyond economic issues. Seeing no benefit to a trade union, many working people in the Netherlands have turned to far-right parties. Others do not vote at all, feeling entirely powerless and becoming cynical.

As well as a very weak trade union movement, the Dutch Left has significantly declined over the years. Like many working classes dominated by reformism, in the Dutch labour movement the struggle over wages and conditions is historically the realm of the trade unions, who leave the political class struggle – which itself is focused on elections – to the reformist parties. With the decline and rightward shift of social democracy and of the more left wing Socialist Party, the working class is thus massively weekend in the sphere of politics.

Socialist Party

In the same way that the trade unions are only organised in a few sectors, the Socialist Party (SP) is only popular in a few cities. Having grown in the 2000’s and taken 26 seats in the 2006 elections, the SP increasingly became hostile to Marxism and tried to present itself as a moderate, social democratic party. Between 2015 and 2020, there was a left-wing opposition in the SP led by the CPGB-PCC affiliated Communist Platform (CP). The CP engaged in deep entryism with the belief that they could transform the SP by radicalising it. They became chairs of many local SP branches, and had members elected to the leadership of the SP youth organisation, Rood.

Calling itself ‘Marxist Forum’, CP members organised internal discussions on Marxist theory and were quite successful in linking up with young, leftist SP members. At the annual SP conference, CP made motions and argued for their standpoints. To their credit, they raised some serious problems in the Socialist Party, such as Islamophobia, anti-migrant attitudes, and nationalism. Additionally, they argued against participation in a coalition with any of the bourgeois parties, and tried to build on some of the SP campaigns such as organising tenants’ unions. In 2020, the SP leadership attacked Communist Platform members, using the most vile anticommunism and bureaucratic methods. Initially, the SP leadership only expelled CP members and those participating in Marxist Forum. However, when a CP member was elected to the leadership of Rood, the SP bureaucrats disbanded Rood and created a new youth organisation called Young in the SP. The Dutch USFI (Grenzeloos) also had a few members in the SP, who were standing as candidates in local elections and were popular with the membership. The SP leadership expelled them, too, and anyone who was perceived to be even marginally affiliated with CP. Having purged the entire left-wing of the Socialist Party, the SP became less popular and lost thousands of its most committed activists.

The expelled leftists from the SP quickly formed a new group, calling themselves the Socialists, which follows a similar model to the Brazilian PSOL. Rood continued to operate as a socialist youth organisation, occasionally organising Marxist seminars and participating in marches. Unfortunately, neither the Socialists nor Rood are effective organisations. Their expulsion from the SP has made them very inward-looking, unable to really engage with the working class and the popular masses. They have held two congresses, which have resulted in a few programmatic documents and a constitution, but no real audience for their politics, except themselves. Those who did not join the Socialists joined Bij1, a petty-bourgeois radical party that campaigns mainly around fighting racism and trans rights. While Bij1’s programme contains many progressive reforms, it never mentions the need for socialist revolution. Its theoretical foundation is intersectionality and postmodernism, although it has taken up a few ideas from Marxism. Every personal conflict in Bij1 results in a crisis, and there have been regular accusations of a toxic environment. In the November election, Bij1 lost its only parliamentary seat and has since declined in importance.

Thus, lacking a strong Left and a weakened trade union movement, the working class was without a leadership or a means to fight back. Many working people who voted for the PVV understood that Rutte and the VVD were part of the problem. They felt it in their wallet, saw it in their pensions, and experienced a significantly decreased quality of life during Rutte’s four administrations. Unfortunately, the majority of working people did not have a union to combat austerity or a socialist movement to explain the source of their problems. Not trusting the VVD, or any of the centrist parties (the NSC, D66, etc.), many turned to Geert Wilders who promised to take immediate action and improve their situation.

Racist election campaigns

During the debates before the elections and in the programmes of the bourgeois parties, the far-right parties blamed immigrants for all the problems created by Rutte and the VVD. They used the anti-immigrant climate to blame labour migrants, asylum seekers, international students, and even expats for the housing crisis. Parties like the PVV, FvD and the BBB argued that Dutch people cannot find affordable housing because all affordable housing is being taken by immigrants. Even the Greens and the Labour Party (GroenLinks-PvdA) jumped on the bandwagon. While not taking such a harsh attitude towards migrants, they nonetheless joined the rest of the parties in failing to put the lack of affordable housing into the context of neoliberal reforms.

The only party that did this was the Socialist Party (SP), which pointed out continually that the housing shortage was the result of 13 years of Rutte, which resulted in a massive privatisation of social housing. Instead of blaming immigrants for the housing crisis, the SP argued for a massive social investment plan to expand public housing, introduce rent controls in the private housing market, and ensure affordable housing to all. Unfortunately, the SP has a very weak base of support, being popular only in a few isolated parts of the country, and with trade union members and progressive activists.

Other issues to come up frequently were improved jobs, pensions and social security. Just as with housing, right-wing parties like the PVV, the VVD and the BBB argued that migrants are taking all the jobs and that it is necessary to limit migration to ensure a more secure existence for Dutch people. Wilders argued that by limiting migration, his party would lower the pension age for Dutch people, raise the minimum wage, and increase social security. None of the right-wing bourgeois parties showed that the real source of low-wages, expensive education and healthcare, the destruction of the welfare state, and an insecure existence are the result of neoliberalism. While the Labour Party (PvdA) promised that it would make education affordable again, reduce healthcare costs, and increase the minimum wage to 16 euros per hour, it never publicly criticised the role it played in enacting the worst elements of Rutte’s neoliberalism. During Rutte’s second cabinet, the PvdA was in a coalition with the VVD and held many ministerial positions. As a close ally of the Dutch bourgeoisie, the PvdA ministers helped to carry out austerity, voted on neoliberal reforms posed by the VVD, opposed the trade unions, and entirely betrayed its working class base. Because of this, many workers in the Netherlands have lost trust in the PvdA and looked towards the right-wing parties for answers in the last elections.

A Right-Wing or a Centre-Left Government?

Although the PVV won 37 parliamentary seats, Wilders is finding that forming a coalition will not be an easy, if not an impossible task as the resent withdrawl of the NSC from the tasks demonstrates. After winning the elections, Wilders quickly learned that the only way to form a government is with the support of the VVD and the NSC – be it in a coalition or as a minority government “tolerated” by those parties. In order to gain their support, he would have to sacrifice some of the main promises he made to PVV voters. Although the VVD and the NSC are committed to strict migration policies, they will not be part of a coalition that closes the borders and deports thousands of refugees. Also, the VVD wants to raise the pension age to 69 and will not join a coalition that is not committed to this; Wilders would thus have to betray those who perceived him as a defender of their pensions. The VVD is one of Europe’s most ardent defenders of Zelensky and providing weapons to the Ukrainian army, which conflicts with Wilders’ pro-Russian stance and calls for reduced support for Ukraine.

This reveals a fundamental fact: the VVD, despite having fewer seats than before, remains the political instrument through which the Dutch bourgeoisie rules the capitalist state. It is using all the deception and manipulation of bourgeois democracy to organise a right-wing cabinet with the PVV. The VVD is still calling the shots and is in a position to determine the composition of the next government. Although the PVV is a bourgeois party and fully committed to capitalism, only isolated sections of the Dutch bourgeoisie support it. The VVD has undergone a rightward shift because the weakened trade union movement and a disorganised left has pushed many working people (and many sections of the petty-bourgeoisie) to the right.

During the cabinet formation talks, Wilders announced that he is willing to compromise on most of his promises, such as shutting the borders, deporting immigrants, reducing the pension age, and decreasing healthcare costs. Thus, despite winning 37 seats, the PVV will have to adjust its programme so that it agrees with the VVD and NSC. A cabinet consisting of the PVV, VVD and NSC will certainly be more right-wing and anti-immigrant than anything before, but it does not represent a fundamentally new situation. Asylum seekers will be its main victims, as the coming government will not improve processing facilities, make it harder for refugees to reunite with their families, and create a more challenging environment for them. As it will continue the neoliberal austerity measures of Rutte, it will not resolve the crisis. Thus, it is likely to be unstable, unpopular, and create an environment of heightened struggles.

Some have suggested that the victory of the PVV and other right-wing parties means that there is a fascist danger in the Netherlands. But, generally, a fascist regime only comes to power as the result of a protracted period characterised by intense crisis and a sharpening of the class struggle, a situation where the ruling class has to resort to handing over the political executive to parties originating in a fascist mass movement, a movement of enraged petit-bourgeois, which have been used as a militarised force (with militias, gangs) to break up the workers’ movement, its unions and political parties, be they revolutionary or reformist.

In the Netherlands, neither the political nor the economic crisis have yet reached such heights. This is not to say, the coming years may not lead to the formation of larger fascist organisations – either outside the PVV or inside it. Already now, the effects of the economic crisis are most sharply felt by the petty-bourgeoisie. Fascism begins within the petty-bourgeoisie, unorganised workers, and sections of the capitalist class, who create a mass movement with anti-worker reactionary demands and anti-communism. Using extreme racism, nationalism, fascist movements call for a strong national state, usually centred around a leader, and blame a particular group for the problems created by capitalism. When the continued existence of capitalism is under serious threat, the bourgeoisie will support fascist movements in order to entirely destroy the organisations of the working class. A united front of all workers’ organisations then becomes the key to fighting against fascism and transforming this fight into a struggle for socialism.

The conditions for fascism do not (yet) exist in the Netherlands and the victory of Geert Wilders PVV will not lead to a fascist government, even if he is very right-wing, racist politician. This is not to downplay the dangers of the situation. It is certainly the case that the PVV is influenced by fascist ideas and shares some demands in common with right wing populism and fascism, such as calling for the deportation of all Syrians in the Netherlands, opposing the ‘elite’, and extreme nationalism.

Unlike fascism, the PVV and other right wing bourgeois parties in the Netherlands did not resort to extra-parliamentary means of struggle and organising. Rather, they want to introduce a much more right wing, reactionary, authoritarian regime within the framework of the Dutch bourgeois regime. While there has been high inflation and an economic crisis in the post-pandemic situation, the Dutch bourgeoisie is not in a position where its rule is under threat by social unrest or the workers’ movement. Rather, it has used the post-pandemic situation to justify more cuts to social spending and strengthened its position. Thus, Wilders’ success will not result in a fascist state any more than Meloni’s Italy.

This does not mean we should not denounce fascist ideas that appear periodically in far-right parties, such as identitarianism, the great replacement theory, or white nationalism. Racism and national chauvinism are extremely harmful to the working class and communists have a duty to combat these poisons wherever they emerge. Capitalists spread racism in order to divide the working class and strengthen the power of capital. By putting white Dutch workers against working people from other nations – Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Poland, and Ukraine – the Dutch capitalist class paralyses it from taking action. The racism spread by the PVV and its allied parties enabled the Dutch bourgeoisie to deflect attention from the real source of the crisis in the Netherlands, and place the blame on immigrants. Although the PVV is not the main choice of the Dutch bourgeoisie, it succeeded in keeping the capitalist class in power, free from real opposition. Therefore, it is essential that we take a clear stance against racism and the poisonous divisions that it creates within the working class. Our slogan should be “Black, brown, Asian, white, all working people must unite!”, and a militant fight against the racist, chauvinist policies of the coming government.