Next Dutch Election, pick your poison!

[H. Ross Peron]

SP still fairly tough on immigration/assimilation? GreenLeft still basically the party for IS apologists?

Many SP voters (white working-class outside the Randstad metro area) are tough on immigration/assimilation, but the SP isn't nearly the "immigration-critical" party many people think it is. Under Marijnissen, the party had a slight "touch" of it, but the SP jumped on the anti-Wilders bandwagon already before 2010. Nowadays, its stance on immigration/refugees/assimilation is not really distinguishable from that of the PvdA. Looking abroad, the party the SP could be best compared to is still Die Linke, which is pretty telling. The only criticism on immigration the SP seems to have, is directed at the EU.

Regarding GroenLinks: pretty much, yeah.

Could you elaborate on the latter aspect?

[DavidB.]

SP still fairly tough on immigration/assimilation? GreenLeft still basically the party for IS apologists?

Many SP voters (white working-class outside the Randstad metro area) are tough on immigration/assimilation, but the SP isn't nearly the "immigration-critical" party many people think it is. Under Marijnissen, the party had a slight "touch" of it, but the SP jumped on the anti-Wilders bandwagon already before 2010. Nowadays, its stance on immigration/refugees/assimilation is not really distinguishable from that of the PvdA. Looking abroad, the party the SP could be best compared to is still Die Linke, which is pretty telling. The only criticism on immigration the SP seems to have, is directed at the EU.

Regarding GroenLinks: pretty much, yeah.

Could you elaborate on the latter aspect?

Well, these aren't exactly words I would say myself, but it is true that some people in GroenLinks (but no MPs, afaik, so let's not exaggerate this) were very... "understanding" of the attack on Charlie Hebdo - "yeah, the attack was bad, but provoking oppressed people, like Charlie Hebdo did, is bad as well". Equating these positions with each other is somewhat bizarre. We also have a problem with Dutch jihadis coming back from Syria after having been with ISIS for some time, and GroenLinks is one of the parties that basically says that these guys are "misled victims" themselves. I am all for a nuanced approach, but this is taking it a bit too far, I think; some of these guys might certainly have been misled and traumatized at some point, but that shouldn't be the first thing we think of when these people enter our country.

[nolesfan2011]

Pirate Party, my default in most EU nations