The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach a deal on restricting immigration, which will trigger new elections in the fall.
The crisis was triggered by a push by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party to limit the flow of asylum seekers to the Netherlands, which two of his four-party government coalition refused to support.
“It’s no secret that the coalition partners have differing opinions about immigration policy. Today we unfortunately have to conclude that those differences have become insurmountable. Therefore I will tender the resignation of the entire cabinet to the king,” Rutte said in a televised news conference.
Wow. The government chose to resign because they couldn’t agree on a deal?
I don’t know anything about the Netherlands’ civic structure, but if it’s anything like the model spread around by the British, then they were probably staring down the barrel of a no-confidence vote, which would effectively end the same way.