Being right

No one, it seems, saw the possibility of the far-right Party for Freedom’s Geert Wilders winning the Dutch general election, despite the signs having been there for years. Journalists are recoiling at the result, using colourful adjectives to describe their consternation at this so-called political rupture. Is Wilders the Dutch Donald Trump? Or perhaps the Hague’s answer to Viktor Orbán? All this for someone who is in no way guaranteed to be able to form a coalition with other parties. Even if he does, someone else could still become prime minister.

It has been quite the week for global politics veering to the right. Wilders’ victory comes hot on the heels of libertarian populist Javier Milei winning the presidency in Argentina (two politicians with unmistakable heads of hair). The difference, however, is the fact that Wilders (pictured) is by no means a system-smashing political upstart: he has been in parliament for almost 20 years.

In truth, it’s the centre-right courting voters that has opened the door to this sort of thing – and it’s not just a Dutch phenomenon. Look at the Conservative Party in the UK and its obsession with small boats carrying migrants to the country’s shores. Or the fact that Emmanuel Macron chose to give an interview to Valeurs Actuelles, a magazine associated with the far right. In Italy, it was Silvio Berlusconi who forged alliances with the right-wing Lega party and made the country’s current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, his minister of youth from 2008 to 2011.

The Netherlands has long chosen to make migration one of its central political themes, led by the outgoing prime minister, Mark Rutte, who split his own VVD party over the issue. In this context, Wilders starts to find himself part of the mainstream.

Europe has unquestionably shifted to the right due to an inability to reach a bloc-wide consensus on immigration and an ongoing cost-of-living crunch. But, more than anything, the centre is paying the price for its crude politicking and inability to deliver.