Thursday 16 October 2025, by Alex de Jong
On October 29 the Netherlands will have parliamentary elections, again. In early June, the government of prime-minster Dick Schoof lost its majority as the far-right PVV of Geert Wilders blew up the coalition. Shortly before the elections, the contrast between the most important political events in the Netherlands could hardly be sharper. On 20 September, after an anti-immigration rally, fascists rioted in The Hague. On October 5, a quarter of a million people marched through the streets of Amsterdam to show their solidarity with Palestine.
A growing far-right In The Hague, fascists trooped through the streets intimidating people of color and pelted the office of the social-liberal D66 party with stones. Nazi salutes were combined with the orange-white-blue flags associated with the Dutch National-Socialist Movement of the thirties and forties. Showing the connections between fascism and colonialism, others carried flags of the colonial East India Company, the VOC. This was an expression of the confidence of the far-right which feels emboldened by the growth of parties with similar views in parliament.
In Amsterdam, people came together for the largest international solidarity demonstration in Dutch history. This march, often cheered on by local residents, was also a protest against the far-right. Rarely has the gap between official politics and public opinion been so wide. Precisely the (far-)right-wing parties that so loudly proclaim to speak on behalf of “the people” represent only a minority in their fanatical support for Israel’s genocidal violence. The polls for the October elections however provide little reason for optimism. The Schoof cabinet was the most right-wing Dutch government in post-war history, and the first to include a far-right party. That it fell apart after eleven months was no surprise. Many had expected the government to fall even earlier. Dutch politics in the 21st century looks extraordinary chaotic. Since the turn of the century, only one government coalition has lasted its full four year term. And in August 2025, the country saw a political first, as the conservative NSC left the rump cabinet. It took this unprecedented step because the final two remaining parties (the right-liberal VVD and the right-wing populist Farmer-Citizen Movement, BBB) continued to block the NSC’s proposals for rather tame political protests against the genocidal policy of the Israeli state.
But looking beyond the chaos on the level of parliament seats makes clear that the general pattern of Dutch politics is relatively stable, unfortunately. The PVV remains stable and the bourgeois right, especially the right-liberal VVD, continues its rightward drift. Polls predict the PVV will lose only a few per percent as compared to 2023, and crucially, with a predicted 20 per cent remain the largest party. The far-right bloc in the Dutch parliament now consists of five parties, from the Calvinist fundamentalist SGP, to the neo-fascist FvD and a BBB undergoing an accelerated evolution from self-declared centrism to a far-right party calling for emergency laws to block immigration. What is new, is that the VVD is facing heavy losses. This has to do with clumsy behaviour of its political leader Dilan Yeşilgöz, but more fundamentally there is tension within the party between those who would like to continue in a coalition with the PVV and those who prefer “stability”. When the Schoof cabinet began its term, the bourgeois right made a number of agreements with Wilders in an attempt to shore up the stability of the coalition. One was a departure from the tradition that the largest coalition partner also provides the prime-minster. This would have made Wilders prime-minster, but the thought of him representing the country on an international level made some in especially NSC uncomfortable. As a compromise, the party-less bureaucrat Dick Schoof became prime-minster. And the new cabinet also promised that it would respect the rule of law. That too was an attempt to limit the role of the PVV as this party strongly supports abolishing constitutional rights such as the freedom of religion (for Muslims) and breaking with international treaties regarding refugee rights and migration.
Predictably, such attempts to contain Wilders made little difference. He was quick to point out that this meant his more extreme plans are still on the agenda for the future. And not being personally part of the cabinet allowed him to continue to style himself as the opposition to a weak and compromising mainstream right.
Wilders choose to blow up the coalition by making demands that he knew would be impossible to implement such as a complete closure of the borders for refugees and expelling all Syrians living in the country. In the 2023 campaign, Wilders sometimes attacked the centre-left from ‘the left’ on issues such as health care costs, but once in government his party quickly dropped its ‘social’ facade and went along with the right-wing economic policies of its partners. A plan to tax stock buyback was rejected and a CO2 tax on industry abolished. Abolishing the own risk fee in the mandatory health insurance plans, a long standing PVV promise, was dropped. Such steps made little difference in the popularity of Wilders. When he ended the coalition, Wilders gambled he would be able to polarise the election around hostility towards migrants and refugees. Wilders knows this is the main driver for support for his party.
The fact that this step meant that the PVV is currently not considered a coalition partner for the bourgeois right is only a temporary loss for him. Wilders treats government participation not as an end itself but as only part of a long-term project to turn the Netherlands into a more right-wing, racist and authoritarian society. The far-right, even when not in government, increasingly determines the parameters of what is considered politically possible in the country.
A stagnant left
And what about the left? Its ongoing merger with the green party GroenLinks means that the Labour Party (PvdA) is shifting slightly to the left. But that the PvdA sounds left-wing during election campaigns is nothing new, and there is no real change in its long term orientation. The research departments of both parties now advocate a form of ‘green social democracy’, but such advice does necessarily have much influence on the parliamentary course. Moreover, with its previous enthusiastic support for neoliberal policies, the PvdA has made much traditional social democratic politics impossible. The merged party is caught in a contradiction of its own making. On the one hand, it realises that in order to win votes, it must distinguish itself from the centre and clearly opt for a left-wing and ecological course. On the other hand, GroenLinks-PvdA, led by former European Commissioneer Frans Timmermans of the PvdA, wants nothing more than to form a coalition with the (centre-)right and therefore cannot afford to offend its desired partners too much. The PvdA’s strategy of governing together with the right now threatens to drag GroenLinks along with it.
That could turn out badly after the elections. It will then probably be difficult to form a cabinet, and the longer this process takes, the more pressure there will be, both internally and externally, on PvdA-GroenLinks to ‘take responsibility’. That could translate, for example, into committing to a centrist cabinet. This would further encourage the party to identify with policies that are supported by fewer and fewer people.
The main party to the left of the left of Groenlinks-PvdA, the Socialist Party, has opted for a back to basics approach. After years of decline, the party is predicted to win around four per cent of the vote, a slight increase. The course of this party can be summed up as ‘economically progressive, socially conservative’. It remains largely silent on issues of racism and focuses on social-economic issues. Even after the riots in The Hague, the SP was the only left-wing party to vote for several motions of the far-right, one that equated far-right violence with the imaginary violence of the far-left, and one defending ‘everyone’s right to peacefully protest against refugee centres’. While using fiery rhetoric about ‘defending the working class’ it also declares its willingness to join a government coalition with the centre-right, especially favouring the Christian-Democratic CDA. In this way, although the SP once grew as a left-wing opposition party pressuring the PvdA, it now risks taking the same dead end course.
Many left-wing people in the Netherlands will probably vote for the Party of the Animals, a party that has evolved from a single-issue supporter of animal rights in a progressive left-wing and ecological party. Also participating is the radical left and anti-racist BIJ1 party but unfortunately it is doubtful if the party will manage to return to parliament. [1]
The quarter of a million people in Amsterdam show that even in the Netherlands a movement against the far-right and its horrors is possible. Such potential needs to be organized and build upon. To turn the tide, the Dutch left will have to work on building its own power, its own structures and proposals for a different society. In the daily struggle for socio-economic interests and against the far-right, it must work together and look beyond the upcoming elections.
16 October 2025
Attached documentsa-confident-far-right-and-a-stagnant-parliamentary-left-in_a9217.pdf (PDF - 900.8 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9217]
Footnotes
[1] For the position of the editorial board of Greenzeloos, journal of the Dutch section of the Fourth International see “Before and After the Dutch Elections: Left Resistance is Essential”.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands and the 1965 mass killings in Indonesia
Amsterdam riots and the wolf who cried antisemitism
Pinkwashing and Queer Dilemmas
Alex de Jong is editor of Grenzeloos, the journal of the Dutch section of the Fourth International.
International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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