Dutch government collapses following migration row

The growing continent-wide crisis caused by mass immigration into Europe has claimed another country with the collapse of the Dutch coalition government led by veteran centrist politician Mark Rutte. The Dutch prime minister announced that he will hand in his government’s resignation to King Willem-Alexander today because of ‘profound differences’ among the four coalition parties over how to handle immigration.

Applications for asylum from migrants into the densely populated Netherlands have been running at almost 50,000 a year and likely to hit 70,000 by the year’s end. Rutte proposed to limit the numbers by drastically capping the rights of foreign family members to join migrants already in the country.

But his plans were opposed by two of his junior coalition partners, the family friendly Christian Union, and the socially liberal D66 party. Now Rutte is likely to stay in office as a caretaker until new elections are organised in November.