ABSTRACT
The Dutch regional elections are generally a rather dull affair. In 2019, they turned into a massive political upset. The radical right party Forum for Democracy, led by the conservative intellectual Thierry Baudet, participated for the first time. When the Dutch parliament voted against holding an EU referendum, it prompted Baudet to found the conservative think tank Forum for Democracy in 2015, housed in a basement in an Amsterdam canal house. The political programme of Forum for Democracy could be described as a New Right fusionist agenda, combining a free market platform of lowering taxes, cutting welfare and flexibilizing the labour market with a conservative cultural agenda focused on limiting immigration, defending ‘Western civilization’, reclaiming national sovereignty and countering feminism and environmentalism. Baudet describes his political mission as a continuation of that legacy.
