“Paradise? They are creating hell on Earth”

The official story is that the Rutte cabinet fell apart because they could not agree with their coalition partners on more rigorous migration measures. What do you think really happened?

It is unimaginable that Rutte’s VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) party would really care about mass immigration. I don’t believe it. They are the number one pro-immigration party in The Netherlands. They have allowed one million people to enter our country in the past 13 years, out of whom one million stayed. Rutte’s decision to step down might have been a strategic one, because the BBB (Farmer-Citizen Movement) party was growing so quickly, and they were probably afraid that VVD would do very poorly in the upcoming general elections. We had a similar situation as a party: we quickly went from zero to our maximum, and that was unfortunate for us because we didn’t have enough reliable people. There was some infighting, which also happened to BBB, and they are already falling in the polls. The D66 party tried to stab Rutte in the back. There was a scheme brewing behind the scenes: they were going to propose a no-confidence vote, and Rutte had withdrawn before they could stab him in the back. He wanted to be the longest-serving prime minister, it’s an ego thing. And it worked, because VVD are doing very well in the polls; they will finish in first or second place.

The polls currently show that FvD (Forum for Democracy) is at 3%, but in 2019, you were a party of 17%. How reliable are the polls regarding this election? 

They are all truly reliable in a certain aspect because they are a form of mass manipulation: people will vote for parties that are doing well in the polls, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they put us at 30 seats, people would storm the voting booths, and vote for us. The polls predict the outcome because they cause the outcome. We know this because we’ve had numerous discussions with journalists behind the scenes. Before the elections, we have not been invited to appear on television at all, they have been boycotting our party for almost three years now.

Your party only?

Yes. In the past we were very popular; they called us all the time. Now, when we call them to schedule an interview, they say, “Oh, we are full this week”. And when we ask, “Well, what about next week?” they reply, “We don’t plan that far in advance.”

With what do they justify their “censorship”? By the way, are we talking about state funded television? 

We don’t know the exact reason because they don’t tell us. They hide behind the motion of political relevance, and they say that our party is not relevant enough; so, they invite Wybren von Haga, instead, who has only one seat in the parliament.

Are you implying that the press in The Netherlands is not democratic and free? 

It depends on what you mean by free because it is the free choice of those editors to not invite us; there is no law stating that they shouldn’t. For example, there is a rather neutral journalist who wanted to invite us to his radio show. When his editorial board heard about it, half of them stood up and said that they would quit if he invited someone from our party. So he didn’t invite us. This is how these mechanisms work, and these people really believe in them. It’s paradoxical because it’s very unfree, but it all happens on the basis of personal freedom. We live in a deeply ideological era, even more so than in communism: back then, everybody knew that Pravda was run by the state and shouted propaganda, but now people believe that the contemporary “Pravda” is neutral and objective. It’s far from it! It’s even harder to criticize and less transparent.

Then how do you reach your potential voters?

We try all sorts of alternatives. For instance, one of our TikTok videos reached 900,000 views. We simply summarized our beliefs, and a supporter of the Green Party that saw this video, was amazed that she agreed with nearly everything we said. Most people don’t realize this because of the media noise.

Geert Wilders is somewhat popular in Hungary; he is known for his anti-immigration views. Hungarian people don’t really understand why his party, PVV (Party for Freedom) and the other Dutch right-wing parties can’t unite or work together. 

We are very different parties, and we don’t believe in the same things. We, of course, have overlapping views, especially on topics like immigration, but for example with COVID, there were striking differences between us: Wilders supported lockdowns, QR-code systems, and quasi-mandatory vaccinations. Contrary to his views, we believe in fundamental freedoms. On another issue, he thinks Israel should just take over Gaza, and do whatever they think is necessary; we are more nuanced on this topic; we stand for deescalation. I don’t think this is a bad thing; on the left, there have always been numerous parties each of which attracts its own electorate, so together, they attract more voters than a single party would. As right-wing parties, we support each other in every debate, and we support each other’s motions in parliament.

What do you think are the biggest problems Dutch people are facing nowadays?

Immigration, woke culture, and the state’s increasing control.

Can you feel the effects of these issues in everyday life?

Of course. Everything is more expensive because of the insane climate rules, they are destroying our farmers and agriculture. Food and gas are terribly expensive in The Netherlands; last winter’s electricity and heating bills went through the roof. All these things are symptoms of the state’s growing control. They came up with a crazy law that demands that each business has to register every single kilometer taken by their employees (whether on bikes, motorbikes, cars, electric cars, or public transport) for an entire year, then they have to record it all, and determine the Co2 impact of each employee. Your employer needs to know where you are, at all times, and we think it is very intrusive. Taxes are continuously being raised, as well as the interest on student loans. We are for the decrease of state power and control mechanisms. We are the most outspoken party against all of this; these are the biggest themes of our campaign.

Your party has come up with 12 demands, which is interesting because the Hungarian revolution of 1848–1849 also started with the declaration of 12 demands. One of these is about the protection of children against woke propaganda. In Hungary, liberals say that our conservatives are exaggerating when they argue that children are being brainwashed in the West.

LGBTQ propaganda is being pushed on children in schools, on TV, TikTok, and Netflix; everything has gone completely woke. In fact, it has spread all over the country now because it’s being advanced through state institutions. They are pushing it and subsidizing it. For example, we have “purple Fridays” in our primary schools; on this day, children are encouraged to come out of the closet and wear purple, as a sign of solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Sadly, all of the cultural institutions and the entire cultural elite are supporting this. It’s inescapable. That is why we have started our own primary school, founded by our party.

So the solution is leaving state institutions? 

Schools are mandated by law to offer programs about sexual diversity. We get hundreds of emails from desperate school board members asking us what they should do because an inspection is coming up and they don’t want any trouble. We provide them with information about the very minimum they are required to do, so they won’t have any problems with the inspection, but won’t poison their children’s minds, either. Two years ago, we started with four children, but now we have fifteen, in our school. It’s a private school, and we are trying to get subsidies but it’s very difficult. We comply with every rule; we have had multiple inspections. I think it’s something of which we will be seeing more and more in our country because people who don’t accept these things, will withdraw from public institutions and start their own ones. I think there will be a mass exodus from public institutions to private ones: in the past few years, the number of privately funded schools has risen by 300 percent.

Many Dutch people are moving to Hungary; our magazine has spoken with some of them, and we published an extensive article about this phenomenon. In The Netherlands, Hungary is portrayed as a dictatorship; Rutte has attacked our country numerous times. What do you think about this exodus?  

It’s very unfortunate because we need them at home. If all the successful people leave, there will be an even quicker decline in our society. We still believe that we can save our country, and we will do everything we can. Of course, they say that Hungary is a terrible country but I don’t think that Dutch voters care too much about it. I think that Hungary is a much freer and much more normal country than ours. I also feel at home here. 

What do you think the outcome of the elections will be?

It doesn’t matter which party wins because the government will be left-wing. Center-right parties in The Netherlands are really left-wing parties. How could they be right-wing if they believe in wokeness, the climate hysteria, if they promote immigration, and how can they be in favor of the war against Russia? So even if a so-called right-wing party –  like VVD or NSC, Pieter Omtzigt’s party – wins, the government will promote left-wing policies. If the left-wing – Frans Timmermans and the Labour Party – wins, it will be the same. They are positioning Pieter Omtzigt as the new savior of the Right, but he also supports getting rid of farmers, and he is pro-immigration. I believe that Dutch people are more conservative, I have trust in their common sense in these elections.

Not long ago, you were the leader of FvD’s youth organization. What would you tell those young Hungarian people who are flirting with the idea that “the West is the best”? 

I would say be careful what you wish for. All this preaching of equality and creating paradise on Earth will ultimately lead to hell on Earth. Currently, this is what we are seeing in the West: a very quick decline. Something that was built over centuries, is now being broken down in decades. The abolishment of normalcy will lead to an ultimate downfall, its effects are already clearly visible; everything has become terribly expensive, there is hardly any social cohesion left, the quality of education is awful. Just consider that a quarter of 15-year-olds are practically functional illiterates in our country. In a matter of years to decades, our institutions will stop working, our economic growth will stall. The West is like an organism that is trying to die because it’s doing everything to halt its own success. We think that this process can be stopped, and whoever wants to stop it, will vote for us.

The leader of your party, Thierry Baudet, has recently been attacked, in Ghent, by a Ukrainian man who hit him with an umbrella. In one of your party’s podcasts, Baudet mentioned that he doubted that the attack was organized by the perpetrator, considering that the entire area was protected by the police. What do you think really happened?

Of course this is pure speculation but it seems possible that some Antifa group pushed this man to attack Baudet. However, I don’t exclude the possibility that it was actually his own idea. We did report the incident, and I’ve also proposed some questions in parliament to find out whether there might be any connection to the Belgian government. Thierry Baudet is on the Ukrainian death list; the US, for example, have urged Ukraine to remove the American names from their death list in exchange for their support. We asked Mark Rutte why he hadn’t done the same; it’s incredible that we are supporting Ukraine with billions of euros, and they still have Dutch people on their death list.

The police did not act quickly. In the video, we can see that the police are extremely passive. 

Indeed, it was really odd. The police took action only about 10 seconds after the attack. The perpetrator was detained for merely 12 hours, and then he was set free. The man, who stood in front of Sigrid Kaag’s (D66 politician and Deputy Prime Minister – editor’s note) door with a torch in his hand, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. But Belgium is known for not having a very stable government, and maybe this affects the performance of the police as well.

So, are the police in The Netherlands stricter? Do you feel safe at home?

I used to think that people are not crazy enough to do such things, but it turns out that they actually are. I’m now more conscious of the potential risks that do exist. I think we can say that there is state-tolerated political violence in The Netherlands. Antifa attacked our party office, and they were escorted out by the police. They threw a paint bomb inside, and the police escorted them away. Our youth wing had a boat tour in Amsterdam, and they threw all sorts of disgusting things – like feces – on the participants, yet nobody got arrested. 

What are your views on the war between Russia and Ukraine?

We want peace. From the very beginning of the conflict, there has been a peace agreement in place, but with pressure from the US, it is not being taken into consideration. If Ukraine accepted Russia’s terms, the war would be over. Of course, we also suffer because of the conflict; energy prices have increased drastically, and we are experiencing extremely high inflation rates. Therefore we support peace negotiations. The Netherlands has a long tradition of being a neutral state in wars, and in facilitating peace negotiations. We would like to do the same for this current conflict in order to end it. 

In your party’s podcast, you also mentioned that fake profiles on social media are trying to manipulate potential FvD voters by writing comments, suggesting that voting is senseless. You suspect that the AIVD (General intelligence and Security Service – note of the editor) is involved in this. What makes you think that these comments are not simply written by enthusiastic voters of other parties who are trying to change the minds of the people?

We strongly suspect that these actors are working for such services. They are stalking our Telegram and X groups, and they try to convince our supporters that it’s useless to vote because the system is corrupt, and there is a serious risk of electoral fraud. In fact, our electoral system is very reliable, and it’s extremely difficult to manipulate it. It’s much easier to convince thousands of people to stay home by manipulating them this way. The reason why we think that this phenomenon is being controlled by the AIVD or similar services, is that it’s being done in a very structured way. There are countless fake accounts that are doing this.