15/02/2021
There is more than one type of right wing leader, and in the wake of the populist nonsense that has emerged from the stranger edges of the internet, some of the people who used to be described as “extremist” are keen to put clear distance between themselves and the violence of Trumpists. In a report for BBC-2's “NewsNight”, one of Europe's most ordered countries, the Netherlands was visited by a team. They found that politicians and newspapers were struggling to come to grips with recent violent demonstrations, which involved anti-Covid Vaccination advocates and their allies in Qanon, a bizarre conspiracy theory that believes, apparently without irony that disgraced former US President Donald Trump is trying to save the world from global domination by devil worshipping paedophiles. These groups causes millions of Euros worth of damage in Dutch cities recently. To make sense of the violence, the BBC talked to Geert Wilders, leader of the traditionally right wing Dutch Freedom Party. Mr Wilders is often considered to be far right wing, due to his views on immigration, although he always advocated for women's and LGBTQ equality as part of the traditional Dutch way of life. Mr Wilders was at pains to distance his party from the Qanon movement, whom he said were a disgrace to Dutch politics, and should be dealt with very severely for their harrassment of the public and politicians. A General Election is scheduled in the Netherlands for next month, with no party expected to gain overall control of the Parliament.
