Dutch political news has been consumed this past week by the strange saga of Eric Lucassen, Dutch M.P. for Geert Wilders’ “Freedom” Party (PVV) and its spokeperson on defence and neighbourhoods. That last might seem an odd subject, but has become one of the buzzwords of modern Dutch politics, somewhat of a dogwhistle as well, as we’ve belately rediscovered that the old city neighbourhoods have been somewhat neglected and not very nice places to live in, not to mention full of foreigners. Though on the whole the Netherlands never had to deal with mass deindustrialisation on the scale as what happened in the North of England, nor ever had ghettos even roughly comparable with the classic American ghettos, every now and again we do get a moral panic about what we’ve done to our cities. In centre left politics this than manifestates as attempts at artificial gentrification, on the right it’s more about getting tough on crime and disorder, which quite easily transforms into getting tough on people of colour, especially young people of colour. Wilders and the PVV used this to win the last elections and Lucassen there held quite an important post within the party.
Until an interested newspaper started talking to his former neighbours and discovered that Lucassen himself might have been a bit of a bully…
Quite a shock to discover that an authoritarian politician is a bully in real life, I know, but the facts are there. He insulted and threatened several people, threw a bucket of water over a seventytwo year old man, shorting out his hearing aid, called one woman a fat pig, not to mentioned threatened yet another family with sulphuric acid — and all this supposedly caused by an argument about dogshit.
Bad enough, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. He also turned out to have played a minor role in a big sexual abuse case when he was still in the army back in 2002. Military instructors had been having sex, voluntarily or otherwise, with the women they had been training at the barracks Lucassen also worked. He himself was disciplined by a military court for having had a relationship with at least one woman in his chain of command, consensual though still improper.
There have been other scandals with PVV MPs, but this has been the first big test of Geert Wilders and his party. Arguably Lucassen’s track record meant that he was not suitable as a member of parliament, especially so since he had failed to mention any of this to Wilders. On the other hand, the current government only has a majority in parliament with the support of the PVV and this majority is only one seat big. Lucassen can not be forced to give up his seat to his party: once elected the seat was his until the next election, not the party’s. Only by his own resignation would it be freed up for a more suitable person. If Wilders therefore kicks him out of his party, that would mean Lucassen could go on as an independent MP and the majority of the government therefore would rest on the support of a loose cannon, unhindered by party loyalty. Not the best outcome for Wilders, or the government.
Yet Wilders has spent years hammering his law and order credentials, accusing the leftwing parties of mollycoddling criminals and decrying any leniency towards them. He has also spent most of the past decade attacking people, both inside and outside parliament, for dodgy behaviour, e.g. doubting the integrity of two ministers in the last government for having a double nationality… So here is a member of his own party with a criminal past, accused and convicted of the same kind of antisocial behaviour has party had promised to punish severely. So surely he would throw Lucassen out of the PVV, right?
Of course not. Political expedience trumped principles, just like it would’ve for every other politician. It’s a huge blow for his image as harsh but honest spokesman of the silent majority, as he casts aside his socalled principles the first time they get him in hot water. For those of us who have hated his guts from the first time he opened his odious little mouth however, it’s immensely satisfying to seem him hoist on his own petard. About time too.
