In 1981, fewer than 600 motions were tabled in the House of Representatives annually. That number has now increased by more than 700 percent to 5,000 motions, he cites Verhoeven as an example. “He’s become eight times as much,” he says. According to the former deputy, the cause is the use of social media. “In the 80s, there was no constant news and ability to enter the digital stage on Twitter.”
“Now a motion is a fart that every politician leaves out in every debate”
Verhoeven is annoyed by this way of doing politics. «A deputy has a series of tools with which he can carry out his task of control. The most important means is an initiative law. So really rewrite a law. Few MPs do it from start to finish, because it takes four to five years. In my eleven years I was able to write two from top to bottom, which is hard work.’
According to Verhoeven, a motion is one of the easiest ways to exert influence. ‘That’s just an A4 sheet, you type a few sentences on it and a proposal comes up. In the past, if a member of parliament tabled a motion and it was adopted, the government really had to do something about it. Now it’s a fart that every politician lets slip in every debate.” This means that a movement is no longer a means to bring about change, but ‘manifesting’, explains Verhoeven. “Those movements have been eroded.”
A vote of no confidence no longer counts
Not only has a normal movement lost its effectiveness, says Verhoeven. Even the no-confidence motions have become ‘a joke’. ‘Shortly before I entered the House of Representatives in 2009, Mark Rutte, as leader of the opposition, had tabled a motion of no confidence against the Balkenende cabinet. This was big news at the time. Balkenende was completely wiped out. According to some, this also gave Rutte an impetus that allowed him to become prime minister. Now a no-confidence vote has become a joke, because it happens so often and a large minority is in favor,’ says Verhoeven.
“Algorithms and social media are drivers of human tendencies, especially in politicians, such as vanity, the desire to score and visibility,” Verhoeven says. “In that sense, digitization has significantly increased the number of movements.”