Populist right takes Holland
The Dutch elections have wider political significance.
Right-wing populist Geert Wilders won a “historic victory” for his Freedom party in last week’s Dutch elections, says Senay Boztas in The Spectator. The “shock” result saw his PVV party top the poll, with a quarter of the vote, more than doubling its representation in Parliament. Wilders declared that the antiimmigration PVV can now “no longer be ignored” and is set to govern. There had been widespread mistrust of the government following a series of scandals under former prime minister Mark Rutte, and anger over immigration, both of which prepared the ground for Wilders’ anti-establishment message.
Tremors across Europe
Wilders may be celebrating, but the election itself really just marks “the end of the beginning”, says Jon Henley in The Guardian. With the PVV still well short of a majority, we can expect “endless horse-trading” as it tries to build a viable coalition to govern. The mainstream right-wing parties who had previously ruled out working with the PVV now say that “the result must be respected”, but “whole swathes” of Wilders’ manifesto are unacceptable to potential coalition partners, or “simply illegal”. Promises include a referendum on leaving the EU and an end to the free movement of EU workers. Wilders has said he is prepared to put his anti-Islam programme “on ice”, but experts say he will “need to go much further” than that.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Similar forces are at work in the US as huge numbers of asylum seekers cross the southern border, which might well tip “the political balance… to the populist right” there too, says William Galston in The Wall Street Journal. The perceived failure of Joe Biden’s administration to respond to this effectively has created “new fiscal and social pressures across the country” and has divided even his own party. With Republicans “more trusted than Democrats to deal with border security by margins of 20 percentage points or more”, Biden needs to change course if he is to have a chance of being re-elected.
This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.
Related articles
- Betting on US politics – who'll be the next US President?
- Pedro Castillo: leftist outsider who rode to power in Peru
- Rishi Sunak: the maharaja of the Yorkshire Dales
-
Profits at the final frontier – how to invest in spaceGetting into space has never been cheaper thanks to private firms and reusable technology. That has sparked something of a gold rush in related industries, says Matthew Partridge
-
Rachel Reeves is rediscovering the Laffer curveOpinion If you keep raising taxes, at some point, you start to bring in less revenue. Rachel Reeves has shown the way, says Matthew Lynn
-
Rachel Reeves is rediscovering the Laffer curve
Opinion If you keep raising taxes, at some point, you start to bring in less revenue. Rachel Reeves has shown the way, says Matthew Lynn
-
The enshittification of the internet and what it means for usWhy do transformative digital technologies start out as useful tools but then gradually get worse and worse? There is a reason for it – but is there a way out?
-
What turns a stock market crash into a financial crisis?Opinion Professor Linda Yueh's popular book on major stock market crashes misses key lessons, says Max King
-
ISA reforms will destroy the last relic of the Thatcher eraOpinion With the ISA under attack, the Labour government has now started to destroy the last relic of the Thatcher era, returning the economy to the dysfunctional 1970s
-
Why does Trump want Greenland?The US wants to annex Greenland as it increasingly sees the world in terms of 19th-century Great Power politics and wants to secure crucial national interests
-
Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion reveals the key to GDP growthInterview According to Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion, competition is the key to innovation, productivity and growth – here's what this implies for Europe and Britain
-
'Investors should brace for Trump’s great inflation'Opinion Donald Trump's actions against Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will likely stoke rising prices. Investors should prepare for the worst, says Matthew Lynn
-
The state of Iran’s collapsing economy – and why people are protestingIran has long been mired in an economic crisis that is part of a wider systemic failure. Do the protests show a way out?
