Rudderless Right

The Dutch "Right" seems to be in serious disarry.

After the 2002 "Fortuyn" elections it was the Left who was in disarray. It saw its ideology questioned for the first time, many of its leaders de-robed and discredited and its party structures badly shot up. The Left was rudderless and mastless like French Men o' War at Trafalgar. Bliss it was to be alive and right-winged in that false dawn.

The Left reformed its formations

After some time the Dutch Left restructured itself, adapted to some of Fortuyn's truths and gave the rest of Fortuyn's philosophy a wide berth. These days most of the press is blatantly multi-culturalist and statist again in its reporting and commentary.

The Dutch Right was in charge and reformed the economy

Back in 2002, the days of chaos and turmoil, after the assasination of Fortuyn a shortlived government was formed consisting of the Christian Democrats, the Liberal Conservatives, and the populist Fortuyn List. Due to the ineptitude of the latter party the Balkenende I coalition broke up after a few months. The Balkenende coalition was named after its Christian Democrat leader.

The Right was still strong in the minds of the people. The Christian Democrats and Liberal Conservatives were able to form a new government with the centrist Democrats 66. The new government is called Balkenende II.

This government used its time well, embarking on a program of further economic reform and liberalisation, emphasising responsibility of citizens and their self-organisation. This vision is true to the old time Christian Democracy.

The government slaughtered some of the holy cows of Dutch PC on law and order and immigration. Notably with the harsh and legalistic Rita Verdonk on Immigration and Integration. The message abroad was clear. Immigration fell sharply. The Netherlands lost its image of hospitality in the minds of Thirdwolders looking for a nice warm national body to leech and live off.

Then a few months ago the government fell as a result of an inept action by Minister Verdonk and her political "sister" Lousewies van der Laan of coalition partner D66. This was over the Dutch citizensship of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali Religion Basher. There will be elections in autumn.

The coalition timed their fall poorly. There had been a downturn in the business cycle and unemployment was rising in the beginning of the government. The Balkenende coalition implemented unpopular measures, cutting welfare and government subsidies and attempting to decrease bureaucrat meddling. The Christian Democrats were low in the polls, because people liked neither the "responsibility" message, nor the leadership of Balkenende, who is as inspiring, alive and sexy as a Swiss Cuckoo clock with a common cold.

As a result of the economic upturn since 2005 unemployment has fallen sharply. Due to the constant policies of deregulation and lower taxes since 1992 business is ruining unemployment and welfarism. Unemployment has fallen below 3.8 percent of the working population! Wages are rising.

Naturally the Balkenende coalition wants to take credit for the upswing and tell the voters that all their economic winnings will be squandered if they cash their conservative political chips and start playing Socialist roulette again.

Voters do credit Balkenende with their prosperity and the Christian Democrats are gaining in the polls. But will the Right be strong enough to form a stable coalition after the elections? And will it be a right-winged government or just a leftwing government in travesty?

It is unclear how the Liberal Conservatives (VVD) will fare in the autumn elections. In the confrontation between the popular Rita Verdonk and Mark Rutte the party membership elected boyish Rutte as its leader. Verdonk has the second position on the list. Both are lacking in political and intellectual gravitas. Verdonk is a voter magnet, but due to her defeat the Liberal Conservatives have lost much of their appeal. The Liberal Conservatives are in turmoil, there is a new party list with lots of new candidates. Some of them are antagonistic to each other and have publicly left the party list. One of them, mr. Doctors van Leeuwen, is a very notable former head of Dutch internal security. Another, van Schijndel, has been purged from the part. Van Schijndel is unhappy with the way the Liberal Conservatives are avoiding the mentioning of immigration and multiculturalism issues. Like 2002 the VVD is pretending there is nothing going on although public opinion is getting even more concerned with Islamisation. Support for article 1 of the Dutch constitution, against discrimination is one of the most important point of the 2006 party platform. In the municipal elections in March the VVD even proposed to close down bars and nightclubs that do not allow non-whites on their premises. The whole program of the VVD sees humans as homo economicus, without any other affiliation than his economic well-being.

Despite her disastrous showing in the March municipal elections, the black figurehead of the Amsterdam VVD, Laetitia Griffith has been promoted to a high position on the VVD-list. So VVD is still committed to a pro-multiculturalist platform that bears zero relation to reality.

Democrats66 (D66) can be ruled out as a junior coalition partner after their idiotic behaviour in the Hirsi Ali fracas. Perhaps the party will even disappear altogether.

The Christian Right

Further on the Right is a whole range of old and new Rightwing parties. There are the orthodox-protestant Christian Union and Calvinist State Party (SGP). These parties actually take Christianity seriously and can therefore be discounted as possible members of a “Right-wing” coalition, under current PC conditions.

Then there are a bunch of individuals with party lists that have sprung up in Fortuyn’s wake.

The New Right

The most serious of them are EénNL of Marco Pastors and Eerdmans, old friends of Pim Fortuyn and Wilders' Freedom Party, the party of the Liberal Conservative breakaway.

These parties want to limit immigration, lower taxes and slash regulation. They are critical of Islam and favor strong integrationist policies. They are against discrimination, although Wilders has recognized that the rising tide of non-whites in the major cities is an impossible situation for Dutch society.

Problematic with these parties is that they come in penny packets, have very little history, the leadership and cadre are all new, so there is no “esprit the corps”, so these parties may easily fall apart a few months after the elections. This makes scatters the rightwing vote and makes it less reliable in the long term.

A more reliable partner

Perhaps the most reliable rightwing ally is to be found in the leader of the Labour Party, Wouter Bos. Bos has recognised that the limit to what the white middle class is willing to endure as far as immigration and taxation is concerned has been reached. Consequently he quietly supports limit on immigration. Labour has been thoroughly cowed by their thrashing in the 2002 election. In the Labour cadre committed careerists outnumber committed ideologues. They are desperate that they may spend another 4 years in the opposition and are quiet happy to sell their soul to Satan in order to get back in business. As their party officially views the anti-immigrant Right as demonic they know who they are going to call to get a quote. Wouter Bos is hardly willing to participate in a Leftwing coalition if it would get a majority.

Concluding: the right-wingers who want to make a statement Wilders’ party is the one to support. Those who want to make a practical impact might do best to vote for the Christian Democrats. Whichever coalition is formed will likely carry on the Christian Democratic policy of slowed immigration and deregulation.