BIJ1 (Dutch pronunciation:[bɛi̯ˈeːn]; lit.'together'), formerly known as Article 1 (Dutch: Artikel 1), is a political party in the Netherlands. It was founded in Amsterdam in 2016 by Sylvana Simons, a television personality who was formerly connected to another party, Denk.[14][15][16]Edson Olf has led the party since September 2023.[17]
History
Foundation
In 2016, Sylvana Simons joined Denk, a political movement founded by MPs Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk after leaving the Labour Party following an internal dispute over the party's position on integration.[18][19] In December of the same year, Simons left the movement as she was disappointed by the lack of support she received from the party during a period of intense death threats.[20] She also felt that Denk was becoming increasingly conservative and losing interest in progressive causes such as LGBT rights.
Shortly after her departure from Denk, Simons founded her own party, named Article 1. The name referred to the first article of the Dutch constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender or any other reason.[21]
Article 1 received 28,700 votes (0.27%), failing to reach the 0.67% threshold to get a seat in the House of Representatives. Most of the party's support came from municipalities with a large Afro-Dutch population, such as Amsterdam (2.5%), Almere (1.9%), Diemen (1.7%) and Rotterdam (1.3%). The party also achieved an above average result in the Caribbean Netherlands (1.6%). The party scored negligibly in the more rural municipalities and cities with little or no immigrant population.
Name change
The party was sued by anti-discrimination think tank Art.1 for trademark infringement. The judge's verdict was in favor of Art.1, and therefore Simons was forced to change the name of the party.[23] On 29 October 2017, the new name was announced: BIJ1.[24] BIJ1 refers to the Dutch word bijeen, which translates to "together".
2018 municipal elections
In March 2018, the party only contested in the municipal election in Amsterdam. Sylvana Simons was again elected as lead candidate. During the campaign, one of the party's candidates was accused of lying on her résumé, in which she wrongfully claimed to be a psychiatrist. Her candidacy was eventually withdrawn.[25]
Despite this incident, the party won 6,571 votes (1.9%), just enough to win a seat in the municipal council. The best results for BIJ1 were in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, especially in the Bijlmermeer, which is home to a large Surinamese migrant population.
2021 general election
In February 2020, the party announced that it would compete in the 2021 general election.[26] The candidate list was approved by the general assembly in November 2020. Sylvana Simons was again selected as lead candidate, while anti-racism activist Quinsy Gario was placed on the second spot.[27][28] The party was supported by prominent lijstduwers, such as academic Gloria Wekker and actresses Anousha Nzume and Romana Vrede.[29] The party achieved 0.84% of the vote share, securing a seat in the House for the first time.
2023 general election and internal problems
In 2021, Quinsy Gario was suspended from the party following behaviour allegations.[30] He later cancelled his party membership which prompted the BIJ1's entire executive board in The Hague to resign in protest.[31] In June 2022, the party's national chairwoman Jursica Mills left after claiming in a letter that BIJ1 had become a party of "toxicity, cronyism and contradictions."[32] In September 2022, the board of the Amsterdam branch quit after accusing B1J1's leadership of interfering in the selection of the a new faction leader following Jazie Veldhuyzen's resignation and raised accusations of fraud within the party. At the same time, Gloria Wekker also accused the party of containing racism, misogyny and cancel culture within its ranks.[33]
After the November 2023 snap election was triggered following the collapse of the fourth Rutte cabinet, Simons announced on 24 July that she would not run for re-election and would stand down as lead candidate for the party citing health reasons. Around the same time, several reports emerged of growing instability within BIJ1 which had built up over previous years. Two BIJ1 Amsterdam councilors also quit the party before Simons' announcement, citing a "toxic climate" in the party and stated Simons had also insufficiently supported them which Simons denied.[34][35] It was subsequently announced Edson Olf would lead BIJ1 into the election. The party lost its seat in the House of Representatives. In December 2023, the party was forced to repay 127,000 euros in parliamentary subsidy payments after failing to provide necessary documents to the House finance committee to show the subsidies had been spent correctly.[36]
According to the party, its two pillars are radical equality and economic justice.[37] The party supports the LGBT community, stronger anti-hate speech laws and an end to ethnic profiling, and it supports intersectionality.[38][39] Because of the party's left-wing radicalism, it is often cited along with socialist parties and movements.[7][8][40] Rebekka Timmer, member of the commission for the party program and number three on the list for the 2021 elections,[41] however, shows an indifferent view in regards to the term communism, but admits to drawing inspiration from anti-capitalist thinkers, such as Karl Marx.[42] Founder Sylvana Simons opposes communism as it is envisioned by China and the Soviet Union, calling it state capitalism.[43]
^"KiesWijzer x RedPers - Interview Rebekka Timmer #2 BIJ1" (in Dutch). Podcast Kieswijzer. 16 March 2021. Archived from the original on 9 January 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2022 – via YouTube. Noem het communisme, wij noemen het rechtvaardigheid (...) Ik weet niet of het heel veel raakvlakken heeft – natuurlijk, we zijn geïnspireerd door antikapitalistische denkers. Wij vinden daar veel in, maar wij hebben echt een eigen ideologie, want het socialisme, als je wil, daar zei Karl Max natuurlijk al over: dat moet je afstemmen op de plaats en de locatie en de materiële omstandigheden van het hier en nu. Wij vinden het ook belangrijk dat we gewoon naar de samenleving kijken zoals die nu is en dan gaan kijken wat zijn de rechtvaardige oplossingen en niet per se de geschiedenisboeken erbij pakken om te kijken wat iemand anders ooit heeft gezegd. (Call it communism, we call it justice (...) I don't know if it has a lot of similarities – of course, we've been inspired by anti-capitalist thinkers. We find a lot in it, but we really have our own ideology because socialism, if you will – Karl Marx has said about it: you need to adapt it to the place and the location and the material conditions of the current place and time. We think it's important to look at society as it exists now and then have a look at what the righteous solutions are and not to get the history books out to see what someone else has said in the past.)
5,276[2]
