Oh boy, there is political drama here in the Netherlands right now.
The most right wing party in the coalition stepped out of the government because the other parties refused to sign its “strictest immigration policy ever”, so we’re heading towards elections again. Meanwhile parliament approved a law making being an illegal resident or helping one a crime. It needs to pass through the senate yet, but still. The minister of agriculture was found by a judge to abuse her power to obstruct freedom of information. There’s still no plan to solve the nitrogen pollution crisis, leading to building projects being on hold throughout the country. Against their promise of not drilling for gas in the northern province of Groningen anymore they’ve allowed it again, leading to more earthquakes. A singer was accused of antisemitism by politicians because he refused to play at a gig that had posters promoting Zionism, which led to him having to flee the country with his family because of death threats. Don’t speak out against Israel here either. There were border patrols done by a group of “activists” looking for illegals (“we found no brown people or anyone looking like that” they said), which were small and luckily stopped, but still. Then there are the government cuts in all social sectors, killing all services slowly over the years. Public transport, education, healthcare, municipal services, welfare, it’s all going downhill. And while the government still has to pay back thousands of parents it had wrongly accused of daycare fraud, the next screw-up was discovered a few months ago and they now also have to pay thousands of people on welfare for being sick because they had underpaid them for years.
The election campaign is probably gonna be a bunch of screaming matches about immigrants and refugees and name calling again even though there are far more pressing issues going on. It’s not as fascist here as it is in the US yet, but that’s only because we have a more reasonable electoral system.
Oh boy, there is political drama here in the Netherlands right now.
The most right wing party in the coalition stepped out of the government because the other parties refused to sign its “strictest immigration policy ever”, so we’re heading towards elections again. Meanwhile parliament approved a law making being an illegal resident or helping one a crime. It needs to pass through the senate yet, but still. The minister of agriculture was found by a judge to abuse her power to obstruct freedom of information. There’s still no plan to solve the nitrogen pollution crisis, leading to building projects being on hold throughout the country. Against their promise of not drilling for gas in the northern province of Groningen anymore they’ve allowed it again, leading to more earthquakes. A singer was accused of antisemitism by politicians because he refused to play at a gig that had posters promoting Zionism, which led to him having to flee the country with his family because of death threats. Don’t speak out against Israel here either. There were border patrols done by a group of “activists” looking for illegals (“we found no brown people or anyone looking like that” they said), which were small and luckily stopped, but still. Then there are the government cuts in all social sectors, killing all services slowly over the years. Public transport, education, healthcare, municipal services, welfare, it’s all going downhill. And while the government still has to pay back thousands of parents it had wrongly accused of daycare fraud, the next screw-up was discovered a few months ago and they now also have to pay thousands of people on welfare for being sick because they had underpaid them for years.
The election campaign is probably gonna be a bunch of screaming matches about immigrants and refugees and name calling again even though there are far more pressing issues going on. It’s not as fascist here as it is in the US yet, but that’s only because we have a more reasonable electoral system.