All left-wing parties experience a dramatic loss of votes in the recent elections in the Netherlands. The Labour Party did not lose votes but remain at their all-time low. Short-term reasons explain in part the poor performance. But long-term factors explain why Social Democracy will remain in dire straits. In 2012, when the country was […]
Netherlands
Last week’s elections in the Netherlands show a disastrous result for the three traditional left-wing parties. But defining themselves by emphasising their differences, steadily diminishes their common impact. There is a debate on uniting these three parties into one. A major intervention is certainly required, but a merger should not be the only solution. This […]
On March 17, the Dutch went to the polls in the middle of the Covid pandemic and a faltering roll-out of the vaccination programme. In addition, the government had resigned shortly before the elections over a scandal of racial profiling of families claiming child support. Neither the scandal nor the botched vaccination scheme seemed to […]
2017
The results of the elections on 15th March show an unprecedented loss of 29 of the Labour Party’s previous 35 seats. What makes it worse, though, is that those seats, or rather the votes that provide them, for a large part did not go to other parties on the left. Although the Green Party, which shares […]
How to unite the left and remain distinctive as social-democrats? On March 15th, the Netherlands will vote for the representatives in the Lower Chamber of Parliament. And, like in so many other countries in Europe and abroad, the dark grey cloud of right-wing politics and populism, and an emphasis on what divides us rather than […]