Liberal and left-wing parties the world over are often accused by their opponents of being snobby and out of touch, a charge they consistently dismiss as right-wing propaganda. But in Netherlands today, the Labour Party called itself elitist.

The Dutch Labour Party has lost touch with its base in working class neighbourhoods, according to Labour Party Education Minister Ronald Plasterk. In an interview on Wednesday in the Algemeen Dagblad, Mr Plasterk says the party consists of too many people with a higher education.

Labour is doing some soul-searching after suffering a heavy setback in last week’s European elections. The party lost four of its seven seats in the European parliament. Labour’s parliamentary leader Mariëtte Hamer announced yesterday that the party is launching a work group to scrutinize the EU election campaign.

Our people
Mr Plasterk acknowledged Labour lost many voters to Geert Wilders’ fast-rising Freedom Party.

“When I see his voters, I see our people. The distance between us and working class voters has increased, but not endlessly.”

“We cannot keep referring to the blessings of a multicultural society if people can no longer understand their upstairs neighbours.”

No consequences
Ms Hamer said the poor election results will not bear consequences for individual leaders of the party. Mr Plasterk also defended Labour Party leader and Finance Minister Wouter Bos. A respected former Labour minister publicly questioned Mr Bos’ leadership on Monday.

“In 2006 Wouter Bos demonstrated the ability to connect to people from all layers of the population, and he can do so again,” Mr Plasterk said.

His criticism regarding the elitism of the Labour Party is also not a call for a shake-up among party ranks.

“I am not arguing in favour of a forced search for people of minimal education in the Party leadership, but we need to foster greater sensitivity to these neighborhoods and the problems that are found there. We need get people back from the neighborhoods where almost 80 percent used to vote Labour.”

* ANP contributed to this report

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