REACTION to Jeremy Hunt’s CCP-style budget all but eclipsed what should have been yesterday’s Stop Press news. I apologise that TCW was not on the case until I read an email this morning from one of our regular correspondents headed ‘Political earthquake!’
As reported by France 24, ‘the Netherlands faced a political earthquake Thursday after a farmers’ protest party won key elections, throwing the government’s environmental policies into disarray’.
The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging or BBB), set up only four years ago, has ridden a wave of protests against Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s plans to cut nitrogen emissions by slashing livestock numbers and requisitioning farms, as we reported last year. Now it is set to be the biggest party in the Dutch upper house of parliament with 16 or 17 seats. The question I asked last year is still moot: ‘Are angry Dutch farmers spearheading an uprising against the elites?’
Their determination in face of the theft of their generations-long livelihoods has proved it is possible. Other countries must now follow.
To get a real flavour of the excitement this upheaval has generated, you can watch Dr Steve Turley of Turley Talks reporting it here.
