Eerdmans (JA21) and former SP MP clash over asylum approach

Former SP MP Sharon Gesthuizen strongly criticizes JA21’s asylum plans. Joost Eerdmans’ party advocates an asylum stop and wants to accommodate asylum seekers in partner countries outside the European Union. According to Gesthuizen, social problems in the Netherlands will not be solved with this approach. “As a politician you spread a story that people will be disappointed with.”

The forming parties are considering declaring the precarious asylum situation a national crisis. A good idea, says Eerdmans, because the Netherlands can then introduce drastic measures. According to the JA21 leader, the Netherlands should follow the British approach as an example. “Sunak (Rishi, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ed.) has to accommodate more than 41,000 boat people every year. The left has no solution for this, while he says: ‘Capture them in a safe country. Elsewhere outside the European Union’.”

Declaring the asylum problem a national crisis, on the other hand, is a bad idea, according to Gesthuizen. “You cannot solve the issues that bother people, for example the housing market, by closing the borders to asylum seekers. The numbers in terms of migration have been many times higher for years.”

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Support base

Gesthuizen also sees that the support in society for asylum is changing. “That has been partly fueled by politicians themselves with the way refugees are talked about.” She emphasizes that the long term must be taken into account. “When is the asylum issue a crisis?”

According to Eerdmans, there has been an asylum crisis for some time now. “There is a crisis until you know in a manageable way who we are letting in here. Now we let those who come to us happen to us. And we put them all on the grass in Ter Apel. There is no policy.”

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Asylum stop

That is why Eerdmans advocates an asylum stop. “That means a fence around the land. Anyone who comes here will be detained and transferred to partner countries. Then you have a flow of people that you can move and that is what England is also doing with Rwanda.”

Gesthuizen agrees that international cooperation should be looked at, but “that does not mean that we do not want to receive these people and that they all have to go to another country.”

Eerdmans counters: “Our country is changing because you admit 50,000 people every year. These people won’t leave anymore. That is the big difference with labor migration. It changes the Netherlands very much. Come and have a look in Rotterdam.”

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‘Enter the discussion’

“The asylum chain is not well staffed. We should have made different choices,” says the former SP member. According to her, politicians should discuss with citizens what kind of country the Netherlands wants to be. “There are still many Dutch people who have a heart for these people.”

“The left never has a solution,” Eerdmans sneers. “According to current politics, we have to contain it and society also says that it is no longer possible. The United Kingdom has found a solution in Rwanda.”

The first hotel is now ready for the arrival of the first refugees. The JA21 leader himself is more likely to think of a country like Zambia. “They are higher in the index than Rwanda, which has a complicated political administration.”

Eerdmans emphasizes that he will look for partner countries outside the European Union for “safety, protection and to take over our asylum procedures”. In practice, this should mean that the refugees are also safe there. “Temporary as far as I’m concerned. Why would you give someone a permanent permit if the country they are fleeing from is safe again? Then they just go back.”

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