Australia should follow Europe’s anti-immigration example

The Dutch VVD party leaves a lot to be desired, nonetheless, its recent election success is a good case study for the Australian right.

Written by Percy Spender, find more of his content on 𝕏 @PercySpender

On November 22, Dutch voters hit the polls to vote in the 2023 Dutch general election to elect members to their House of Representatives. This was an earlier than expected election following the collapse of the previous conservative liberal VVD party led coalition government and resignation of prime minister Mark Rutte earlier in July over failing to reach an agreement regarding refugee intake.

Dutch politics has always been heavily fragmented, the Netherlands have had coalition governments for more than a hundred years. In recent decades the popularity of major parties, centre-right and left, have experienced steep decline. In the 1980s these two parties would receive more than 80% of the vote, whereas now combined they barely secure 40% of the nation’s voter share. Of course, this trend is happening across continental Europe, but it is accentuated in the Netherlands where up to 20 parties have an elected member in the previous collapsed parliament, the complicated coalition negotiations of which took 10 months to agree upon. An incredible 26 parties participated in the election last week.

The question this article seeks to explore is what Australian dissidents can learn from the rise and electoral victory of the national-populist party PVV. I believe it is demonstration that a minor party focussed on a single issue can succeed in the right circumstances. Now, obviously as mentioned above Dutch politics have always had a strong multi-party system, this stands in stark contrast with Australia where, while also allowing multiple parties to run, our Westminster system allows two major parties dominate year after year.

Australian and Dutch voters share similar political concerns; immigration, high international student intake, housing crisis, inflation and the erosion of national culture. PVV received signifiant support for its staunch opposition to immigration and Islamification of the Netherlands - if a minor party in Australia were to adopt similar stances and combine them with a clean and professional presentation, they would likely garner similar support to the PVV. Research and polling on the Australian public’s opinion of immigration is rare, but the data that is available clearly indicates a majority opposed to present and greater levels of intake. It would be very interesting to observe a minor party with narrowly focussed rhetoric centred around immigration and rejuvenating Australian culture. Both Liberal & Labor are not going to budge on mass migration, many voters already feel disillusioned with these options, polling data shows that in recent years increasing amounts of the vote share has been given to independents and minor parties. One could expect this voting bloc of dissatisfied citizens to only grow as the ongoing record high immigration and student visa policy start to effect everyday life and worsen the housing crisis.