The Collapse That Had to Happen

Geert Wilders was right to walk away from a coalition that refused to confront the reality of mass migration.

The Dutch coalition government has fallen, and good riddance. After barely eleven months in office, the most right-leaning government in Dutch history has come undone not because of Geert Wilders’ obstinacy, but because of the refusal of his coalition partners to honour the very mandate that brought them to power: to radically curb immigration and restore national sovereignty.

The now-defunct coalition which was an uneasy marriage of Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), the agrarian populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), the technocratic New Social Contract (NSC) and the centre-right VVD, was always built on sand. From the outset, the alliance had strained over the one issue that matters most to Dutch voters: asylum and immigration. The other three parties, desperate to appear reasonable to Brussels and Dutch media elites, balked when Wilders unveiled his 10-point asylum plan. His proposals, far from extreme, were clear-headed responses to the chaos wrought by years of lax policy which included suspending asylum applications, closing reception centres, restricting family reunification and ultimately restoring border control in the face of mounting demographic and cultural pressure.

The objections were predictable. Centre-right politicians clung to the illusion that Europe would offer a solution. But voters who gave Wilders the largest mandate in the 2023 election had already lost patience with such evasions. The Netherlands is a small country, not a sponge for the world’s displacements. Its cities are crowded, its welfare system strained and its social cohesion fraying. Wilders’ critics call him divisive. Yet it is mass migration, and the political cowardice that sustains it, that has done more to divide Dutch society than any politician.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof, a former security chief and Wilders’ handpicked appointee, tried valiantly to hold the line. But in the end, Schoof was a technocrat presiding over a political vacuum. His insistence that collapse was “unnecessary and irresponsible” missed the point entirely. What is irresponsible is to form a government on a promise to control migration and then abandon that promise.

The hypocrisy of the Dutch establishment that has been so eager to welcome Afghan interpreters, Syrian ‘refugees’ and Moroccan youths, but so hostile to the concerns of its own native citizens has been the fuel of Wilders’ appeal.

The usual critics in Brussels and the Dutch press have already resumed their familiar litany, dubbing Wilders as ‘far-right,’ ‘Islamophobic,’ ‘unfit for government.’ These epithets are now worn thin. It is no longer tenable to dismiss legitimate concerns about integration, security and sovereignty as hate speech. The Netherlands, like much of Western Europe, is waking up to the costs of multicultural dogma. In schools, teachers report censorship when discussing sensitive topics. In cities, knife attacks and gang violence have become unsettlingly common. In communities once defined by tolerance, women increasingly feel unsafe walking alone. And in politics, every attempt to discuss these issues honestly is met with accusations of extremism.

Wilders, who once stood on the margins of Dutch politics, now speaks for a large, disenchanted middle. Unlike his rivals, Wilders has consistently chosen principle over posturing. He refuses to be the useful idiot in a government that pays lip service to migration control while appeasing the same legal structures that neuter real reform.

Wilders’ decision to withdraw is a reminder that a government without direction is worse than opposition with purpose.

When new elections are called, the Dutch people will once again have a chance to speak. And this time, perhaps, their voice will be loud enough that even the liberal Muslim-lovers in The Hague will have to listen.

Europe’s political elite may sneer, but across the continent - from Italy to Denmark, from Hungary to France - the rules of engagement have long been changing. The migration debate is no longer taboo. In that sense, Wilders is not a relic of angry populism, but a harbinger of what’s next.