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SP and far-right have nothing in common – at home or in European Parliament

20 March 2016

SP and far-right have nothing in common – at home or in European Parliament

All of a sudden this week I have begun to receive Tweets and emails asking me whether the SP’s European Parliament team would ever cooperate with the extreme right. Normally I wouldn’t bother reacting to such a question, but because I’ve received so many concerned enquiries, I’ve decided in the interests of clarity to state categorically on this weeklog: with the Dutch PVV and their far right allies, the SP will not cooperate or work either at home or in Brussels.

In this we are following the line adopted by our political group in the Dutch national Parliament in The Hague. As SP leader Emile Roemer told a recent party council, ‘(VVD leader) Wilders is a radicalised former member of the (neoliberal) VVD and we won’t work with someone who sets people against each other.’ A few weeks ago in the United European Left group (generally known by its French initials as GUE-NGL) in the European Parliament, to which the SP is affiliated, we had an extensive discussion about the new political group to which the Dutch PVV and the French Front National belong, and the presidency of which they share. The GUE-NGL was unanimous in the view that these parties never provide solutions, but revel in setting groups within the population against each other. The more tension in society, the better it is for them and the bigger they grow.

The only point on which the parties in our group differed concerned voting behaviour. Some wanted by definition to vote against amendments and so on proposed by the extreme right, even if they precisely reflect our own view. The SP does not take this view, believing instead that we should judge their proposals according to their content. If the PVV were to propose terminating negotiations on the TTIP, for instance, we’d have problems voting against. We would of course try to avoid a situation in which the only such proposal came from the extreme right; it would be better if the left were to put forward a proposal to the same effect. In that case we would of course vote for that version, and abstain on that from the extreme right, even though we agreed with its contents.

It is open to question whether a complete cordon sanitaire against the extreme right works. It could be reasoned that such an approach merely reinforces the victimhood in which the far right likes to clothe itself. But in a time when our hearts are going out to the refugees and when the SP is determined to reduce the tensions within society, cooperating with the extremists of the right in any way whatsoever must be ruled out. Everyone who know the SP knows that this is so, but for any who still doubt it, I will happily continue to reiterate our standpoint on the PVV and its allies. This gives in addition a platform for us to point to our principles of human dignity, equality and solidarity. These are what befits a modern left party, and are anathema to the extreme right.

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