Netherlands PM uses Britain's Brexit 'chaos' as cautionary tale

The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has written an open letter to the people of the Netherlands holding up Britain’s Brexit “chaos” as a cautionary example of what can go wrong when a nation fails to pull together for the common good.

In a full-page advert in the Algemeen Dagblad, Rutte said he saw the Netherlands, “a country that isn’t perfect but where we do make progress”, as a “precious possession” that belonged to everyone but “was brittle … and can easily break”.

He compared the country to “a fragile vase” held by its 17 million “ordinary and exceptional” citizens who “do not only want a good life for themselves and those around them, but also want to contribute to the happiness of others”.

Making sure the vase stays in one piece often requires “compromises … in which difficult problems are solved in a sensible way,” he said: “I almost never get my way. I water down my demands because I have a responsibility to keep that vase intact.”

People who refuse to compromise and work together are “gripping the vase so tightly that it breaks”, Rutte, who has been prime minister since 2010, continued. There were examples of societies that have collectively “dropped the vase”, he said.

“Look at Britain. There, the country’s politicians and people have forgotten what they have achieved together. And now they are caught up in chaos,” Rutte wrote.

The Hague was Theresa May’s first stop on her unsuccessful whistle-stop tour last week aimed at winning concessions – or at least assurances – from EU leaders that would allow her to get her Brexit deal past a mutinous House of Commons.

The Netherlands, a major trading partner and longstanding EU ally of the UK, has been watching the confusion surrounding Brexit with increasing concern. Analysts have calculated a no-deal Brexit would knock 4.25% off Dutch GDP.

Rutte was one of several EU leaders to publicly defend May’s dogged perseverance to get her deal through parliament at last week’s Brussels summit, saying she was “an able leader” for whose “tenacity and resilience … I have the highest admiration”.

Nonetheless, he added in his comments in English, the bloc could not and would not renegotiate: “The deal is there because of the red lines the UK itself drew. So this is the only deal possible, the best deal for both the UK and the EU given those red lines.”

In his summit remarks to Dutch reporters, however, Rutte warned against any Dutch attempt to leave the EU. “If anyone in the Netherlands thinks Nexit is a good idea,” he said, “just look at England and see the enormous damage it does.”

In his letter on Monday, he compared those stirring up division in the Netherlands to “screaming sideline football dads”. There were plenty in politics, he said, “shouting stuff into microphones because they know there will never be a majority for it, so they need never be responsible for the consequences”.

Rutte’s letter comes four months before provincial elections that will determine the composition of the senate. His fragile coalition government has a majority of just one seat in the upper house which it is widely forecast to lose, forcing it to seek support from opposition parties to pass legislation.