After weeks of prevarication now we know: the Netherlands is not going to have its first half-Irish female prime minister to replace 12-year veteran of the job, Mark Rutte, whose fourth consecutive coalition government collapsed over immigration last month.
Despite a landslide victory in regional elections earlier in the year, Caroline van der Plas, leader of the farmers’ protest movement, BBB, finally ruled out the top job for herself in an interview with a Dutch newspaper – but says she’s talking to potential prime ministerial candidates who may join her party.
Who are they? Nobody knows. Van der Plas is on holiday. The media, of course, is packed with speculation. The only thing certain is that independent MP Pieter Omtzigt, the one name whose agreement to join the BBB would put it in pole position for the November election, has said no.
More on Omtzigt, the most potentially powerful king or queen-maker in this election, below. But first to that Van der Plas interview in De Telegraf, the only thing about Boer Burger Beweging, the farmer-civilian party, that’s caused as much surprise as its win in all 12 regions last March.
The BBB is a single-issue party implacably opposed to the outgoing Rutte government’s plan to halve runaway Dutch CO2 emissions by 2030 by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and shutting down thousands of farms by offering never-to-be-repeated financial incentives.
The issue is a hot topic. It has led to farmers’ protests, sporadic rioting outside parliament in The Hague and, unexpectedly powerfully, the sight of inverted national flags flying in rural areas in a revival of the old maritime signal for a ship in distress.
Van der Plas, a former journalist whose mother, Nuala Fitzpatrick, was an Aer Lingus flight attendant, has been the face of reason to the forefront of those protests. However,her obvious reluctance to take the top job of prime minister if her party emerges strongest in November has left even some of her most ardent supporters nonplussed and demanding clarity.
Now they have it. Whereas she was happy as an MP, she said, and happy to lead the BBB parliamentary party – she was elected in 2021 as its only MP – she had decided that taking the job of prime minister would be “an enormous attack on my private life”.
The quotes most frequently repeated in Dutch media in recent days are: “I don’t want to have to put on good clothes and fly all over the world. I would have to wear heels and I can’t walk in them.
“There is nothing wrong with my English, but I am not looking forward to all the travel involved and meeting foreign leaders. In addition, I’m afraid of flying.”
She added: “The fact is that I haven’t been an MP for long enough to become prime minister.”
This is where Omtzigt comes in. Formerly of the Christian Democrats, he was overlooked as leader in favour of Hugo de Jonge in 2022, and recently refused to return to the party to replace former finance minister Wopke Hoekstra at the hustings.
With a history of embracing causes other politicians won’t touch, most recently his campaigning on behalf of families caught up in the child benefits scandal that brought down the third Rutte coalition, he is one of the most respected politicians in the country.
For that reason, not alone has he been courted by the Christian Democrats, to whom he replied at the weekend, “that book is closed”, he has also been approached by Van der Plas and has told her equally firmly that he’s not available.
The political question now uppermost in the Netherlands is whether Omtzigt will form his own party and really put the cat among the pigeons over the next three or four months of canvassing.
Latest polling shows that, as the summer holidays begin in earnest, three parties are neck-and-neck: the BBB; the Liberals (VVD) formerly led by Rutte, who’s likely be replaced by highly capable justice minister Dilan Yesilgoz, an immigrant born in Ankara; and the newly combined Labour and GreenLeft, to be led by European Commission executive vice-president Frans Timmermans.
Only one thing could upset that three-way fight, and that is if Omtzigt enters the race with his own team. If that happens, say the polls, he could emerge ahead of all of them.
Will Omtzigt’s instinct be to remain a lone MP and do what he’s good at, championing hard causes?
Or will the lure of the scale of change that only a prime minister can drive prove irresistible? Watch this space.
