https://fd.nl/achtergrond/1375699/op-zoek-naar-het-electorale-gat-op-links-ljc1caRHSw3o
"the gap on the left" - an article appearing in the Financieele Dagblad about how a "Danish" style social democratic party that is hard on immigration could potentially do well given polling and revive their hopes somewhat. The obvious candidate would be SP, with them already on many cultural issues being quite traditionalist and Jan Marijnissen saying he didn't like the way the left in the west had chosen the culture wars as a battleground or the cancel culture. But daughter Lilian tried to make migration an issue going beyond social dumping and calling for a revision for work permits, and it caused too much friction internally. You know have a movement within PvdA called "Vrij Links" that wishes to stop the debate about culture wars and start talking about secular progressive values as a starting point and then focus on economics.
The Dutch left continues to slide in the polls. Yet the median voter might still probably consider itself progressive, and I think in 2012 you had a SP then PvdA surge to shoulder Rutte (ok, after the most right-wing government in Dutch history, granted) but eventually falling just short and collapsing after the mistake that was the Purple coalition. Weirdly I can only see Timmermans being able to get back to that level in the short term. He actually can target the places a PvdA campaign to unite the Left needs to target (his "home" Parkstad being the prime example), and he has a way of being able to talk to several constituencies without tripping up. But he probably sees himself as more effective in Brussels. Plus the other left-wing parties wouldn't want to work with him as easily as they did with Asscher and now Ploumen.
Sounds like what Jacques Monasch aimed for in his Nieuwe Wegen party. Such a party or faction should firmly reject austerity politics though and be more willing to ally with the CU or CDA than D66 .
I hadn't heard of Nieuwe Wegen but they line up with my own politics pretty decently. Would be torn between them and CU if NW was a larger outfit.
