Senator ditches “increasingly” right BBB to join popular centrist party D66

Continued division over the direction of political party BBB has prompted one of the party’s senators in the Eerste Kamer to switch to D66. Arie Griffioen wrote a letter to Eerste Kamer Chair Mei Li Vos on Friday announcing the decision with immediate effect. The senator wrote that the BBB has “increasingly positioned itself on the right of the political spectrum,” and that this has led him to “profound internal and political reflection.”

The BBB’s party leader in the Senate, Ilona Lagas, lashed out at Griffioen in response, saying she was “taken aback” by the decision, which she discovered from media reports. “We’ve lost a loner, which makes things a bit easier within the party.” His choice parties means the BBB has lost four seats in the Senate since 2023.

Griffioen said he was critical of the BBB’s decisions regarding migration, a topic he recently addressed when he came out against the party’s position to withdraw the law mandating an even distribution of asylum seekers across municipalities and regions.

He has also spoken out against the BBB’s goals to make it a crime when people remain in the Netherlands without authorization, and those who assist them. The senator also said he finds the political call for an emergency law to temporarily freeze asylum reception to be both inhumane and untenable.

His voice is not the only one that has been critical of the BBB’s direction. The political party was born out of the long and arduous farmers’ protests prior to, and during, the coronavirus pandemic, which often focused on nitrogen emissions policies, climate policy, slim margins when selling meat and produce, and a perceived lack of regard by national politicians in The Hague and the Randstad area as a whole.

That eventually led to a monster victory in the March 2023 provincial elections, which determines the composition of the Eerste Kamer. The BBB won a plurality of votes by a wide margin, enabling them to become the largest party in the Senate by taking 16 of the 75 seats.

But popular support quickly fell apart as the party was unable to keep momentum in the election nine months later for the Tweede Kamer, the lower house. The party went staunchly conservative during that campaign, resulting in taking less than 5 percent of votes in November 2023, compared to 21 percent in the election earlier that year. with the party taking seven seats of the 150 up for grabs.

The BBB moved even further to the right to form the governing coalition with the far-right PVV, the right-wing VVD, and the right-wing NSC, a government which fell apart after less than a year. In new elections held a month ago, support for the BBB fell below three percent, with the party now down to four members in the Tweede Kamer.

Earlier this week, the BBB’s minister handling asylum matters, Mona Keijzer, also made headlines by accusing NOS of being pro-Hamas when the national broadcaster said it would no longer share content on social media platform X. “But who will now literally copy the absolutely reliable information from the Hamas Ministry of Health?” said Keijzer, who is effectively the BBB’s second-in-command.

Her comments have been criticized by several parties, including D66 and GroenLinks-PvdA. However it is not known if that was part of Griffioen’s decision to leave the BBB. D66 leader Rob Jetten wrote on X that Griffioen was “careful” in his assessment, adding that everyone who identifies with his party’s policies is “very welcome”.

However, BBB’s leader in the Senate shot down Jetten’s claim. Lagas replied that Griffioen’s departure does not fit within the spirit of unity and optimism that Jetten pledged when D66 won the Tweede Kamer election a few weeks ago.

Last summer, Eerste Kamer Member Robert Croll also left the BBB for D66. He said he was dissatisfied with the party’s positions on Gaza, and its shift in tone. Earlier, Senator Eric Kemperman split from the BBB, later switching to far-right party FVD. In September, Pim Walenkamp also returned to the Senate a few months ago as a one-man faction, and not as a BBB member.

Lagas said Griffioen has since been removed from all of the BBB’s WhatsApp groups. His party affiliation was already adjusted on the Eerste Kamer’s website by Friday afternoon.