Irish Examiner view: Culture warriors care not for climate change 

The victories of the populist agriculture-backed Farmer-Citizen Movement in last week’s senate election in The Netherlands have confused many domestic and international analysts

Caroline van der Plas of the BoerBurgerBeweging said her party 'cannot be ignored.' Picture: Remko De Waal/ANP/AFP/Getty

The victories of the populist agriculture-backed Farmer-Citizen Movement — or the BoerburgerBeweging (BBB) — in last week’s senate election in The Netherlands have confused many domestic and international analysts.

The fact that this farmer-led protest party has had backing from international populists such as Donald Trump in the US and Marine Le Pen in France seems to have convinced some that the BBB is a far-right entity, which embodies the idea that global elites are using green policies to trample on the rights of individuals.

That the BBB’s election successes have put it in a position to derail environmental plans by the coalition government of prime minister Mark Rutte, has seen the party being adopted by some of Europe’s most fervent culture warriors.

That it has come to win this success at a time when the IPCC’s latest report on climate change tells us actions taken this decade will have impacts for “thousands of years” should give pause for thought.

BBB will become the largest party in the upper house of parliament — the Senate — in The Hague, and as such it will have the power to block legislation from the lower house, potentially stymieing the government’s environmental policies.

Founded only four years ago having grown out of mass farmer demonstrations against, and powered simply by farmers and farming communities, BBB is suddenly in a position of power and influence and, according to its leader Caroline van der Plas “cannot be ignored”.

The east-west divide in The Netherlands — that which exists between those who live in Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Utrecht and other cities in the west of the country and those who live in the largely agricultural east — has certainly been a factor in these results, but it does not mean the party wants to be identified with the Trumps and Le Pens of this world.

Initially founded simply to give farmers a voice in their country and reject measures which negatively impact farmers’ livelihoods, the BBB will now have to grapple with anti-immigration views as well as work out what, if anything, is more important than climate collapse to its fellow citizens.