The Weekly Forum - 9 January 2026
12 januari 2026 | Forum for Democracy Intl
Success breeds success. Following the more than doubling of its number of seats in Parliament in last October’s general election, Forum for Democracy is now presenting candidates in over 100 Dutch municipalities for the local elections in March. This is twice the previous number. National polls now show the party much stronger even than its excellent result in October, so hopes are high. The media cordon sanitaire has been completely smashed: there are articles about FVD every day now in the national press, and Lidewij de Vos is often invited onto TV talk shows. What a contrast to the total media blackout of the last five years! At the Christmas dinner in December, party leader Thierry Baudet laid out his plans for wholesale social renewal including education, commercial, cultural and international projects. Buckle up for the ride!
Read about the local elections here
The key to this success is not spin but quality. FVD is surely unparalleled among European political parties in its exceptionally high intellectual level. A vain boast? Listen to this recent intervention by Gideon van Meijeren MP, discussing a proposed amendment to a new asylum law. He argues that if the amendment is adopted, it will simply sabotage the main purpose of the law, which is to criminalise those who remain illegally in the country after their asylum claims have been rejected. When you listen to Gideon’s careful reasoning and clear presentation, grounded in excellent understanding and knowledge of the law, it is impossible not to conclude that the people FVD is fighting are malevolent and dishonest. They basically want open borders and will do anything to pursue their undeclared and indeed denied ‘Coudenhouve-Kalergi’ goal of engineering a great replacement. FVD stands for the most important political value of all, truth.
‘Sharp practice’ is perhaps a more diplomatic way of describing such shenanigans. If you have negotiated a contract for something, and the supplier then comes in with new expensive demands at the last minute, just when you thought everything had been agreed, this can be regarded as dishonest. But when the Dutch government announces 700 million euros for Ukraine in the last 48 hours of the Parliamentary session for the tax year 2025, this passes unremarked on by every party except FVD. Pepijn van Houwelingen MP tried to pin the minister down on this, and on the fact that money is shuffled around between ministries at the last minute, so that funds allocated by Parliament for one thing are in fact used for another. Recipients of government subsidies have to spend some 20% on accounting verifications, so that they do not misspend their money, but the same strict rules do not apply to governments themselves, it seems. 700 million euros, by the way, plus the smaller sums re-allocated because of underspending, comes to about 100 euros per household in the Netherlands. Would that not have been a nice Christmas present?
Watch Pepijn van Houwelingen’s speech here
Michael Yon, war correspondent and political analyst, was our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss the causes of wars – routes, resources and ideology. If you missed it, click below.