Dutch Farmers' Party calls for refugee cap as it rises in polls

Ms Van der Plas called for a limit of 100 asylum seekers per city council or regional government. Credit: SEM VAN DER WAL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

The Dutch Farmers' Party has called for a limit on the number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands as polls show the prime minister's party will fight to become the country's strongest political force in the general election.

The Citizen Farmers' Movement (BBB) ​​came out of nowhere to become the largest party in all 12 provinces of the Netherlands in March's regional elections after a campaign dominated by large-scale tractor-driver protests against mandatory farm buyouts to achieve EU climate change goals.< /p>

BBB leader Caroline Van der Plas, who founded the party in 2019 and is its sole MP, called for a limit of 50 to 100 asylum seekers per city council or regional administration as she sought to seal her victory in a vote that became a referendum on nearly 13 years of Prime Minister Mark Rutte's tenure.

“We need to start assessing every year how many real asylum seekers the Netherlands can reasonably handle while maintaining a broad social base,” she added.

Ms Van der Plas also said that people are tired of crisis due to reduced nitrogen emissions caused by manure and fertilizers.

Seven months of negotiations between farmers and the government of the world's second largest agricultural exporter collapsed last week.

Asylum seekers are campaigning at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in The Hague to draw attention to long waiting times. Photo: REMCO DE WAAL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

“I'm sick of it, we're transporting people in the Netherlands. crazy about this polarization,” said Ms Van der Plas, a former journalist and farmer’s daughter, during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.

The BBB is convinced that the five-party coalition government led by Mr. Rutte will collapse and initiate a general election before the end of the year.

But Mr Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the Netherlands, and other coalition leaders resisted pressure to call elections before the March 2025 deadline.

According to opinion polls published on Wednesday by the BBB will become as big a party in the country as the VVD, which is led by the centre-right Mr. Rutte.

It will then have to enter into a coalition with other parties to form a government, as is usually the case in Dutch politics. Other parties excluded the BBB from coalition talks with local governments in the provinces of Utrecht and Brabant.

Ms. Van der Plas , see here, arrived at the parliament in The Hague, convinced that the coalition government will collapse before the end of the year. Photo: Peter Boer/Bloomberg

Farmers' Defense Forces (FDF) called on thousands of farmers to gather in The Hague on Thursday in what will be the biggest anti-tractor protest since the March elections.

Local media reported that no more than 300 farmers gathered in a large field in the city center after they were prevented from doing so in the House of Representatives, where the debate over the failed agricultural agreement is being held.< /p>

The FDF is a more extremist group than the BBB and has been accused of being involved in violent clashes with police and intimidating Dutch politicians.

Seven arrests were made during the protest, including for assault, and the police refused some farmers on their way to The Hague.