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Two former MPs for New Social Contract have resigned in protest at the party’s decision to invite right-wing independent MP Mona Keijzer to a weekend conference.
Harm Holman, NSC’s former agriculture spokesman, and Ilse Saris, who covered social affairs, said they no longer felt at home in a party that was drifting towards right-wing populism.
Saturday’s general meeting in Breda ended in chaos when the party’s entire management board resigned following a mass walkout when Keijzer stepped up onto the stage. Acting chairman Ronald de Bruin said the situation had become “untenable” after around half the delegates left the room.
Keijzer had been invited to discuss her hardline conservative movement, Project 2029, which she launched after breaking from the farmers’ party BBB earlier this year.
Holman told TV late night news show Nieuwsuur: “NSC was a reasonable centre party in terms of its policies, but it has becoming a populist party that is moving further to the right. I don’t feel at home there.”
Saris said in a parting note: “In my eyes the party has completely departed from what NSC stood for.”
Een walk-out bij het NSC-congres het moment dat @MonaKeijzer het woord neemt. Vooraf was er al veel consternatie over Keijzer als gastspreker. Het was voor @DirkGotink reden om uit de partij te stappen. Nu loopt de helft de zaal uit https://t.co/4PD2YoYwfn
— Nouschka van der Meijden (@NouschkavdM) October 10, 2026
The decision by NSC’s management board to invite Keijzer as a guest speaker prompted its last elected parliamentarian, MEP Dirk Gotink, to resign his membership.
Gotink, 45, said in a post on LinkedIn that seeking closer ties with Keijzer was “incomprehensible”, despite the NSC leadership insisting that there was no agreement to work with her.
Voters return to CDA
NSC won 20 seats in the November 2023 election, just three months after being founded by Omtzigt, who recruited many of his candidates from his old party, the Christian Democrats (CDA).
But the party’s support collapsed soon after Omtzigt joined the right-wing coalition with Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV, the right-wing liberal VVD and the BBB the following year.
Wilders blamed NSC for blocking his plans to introduce the “harshest immigration policy ever”, while Omtzigt resigned first as party leader and then as an MP, citing the toll on his health and family life.
Many of NSC’s voters reverted to the CDA at the election last October, while NSC itself was wiped out. Holman, 69, also said at the weekend that he had rejoined the Christian Democrats.
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