You know, the Dutch, they are so liberal, they’ve got two liberal parties… And one of them, the one that’s most like us, D66, were the smaller party in a coalition, and then in 2006 they got stuffed. 2%, 3 MPs, they came ninth.… But you know what, just scroll forward to last year at the European elections. Ninth? No. First. First. … There’s a model we can copy. Survival and revival is in our grasp. Have hope. Have belief.

– Speech by Tim Farron, our former leader, on 2015.

Fast forward to 29^th October 2025, D66 became the largest party in the Dutch parliament for the first time, with the vote share of 16.9%. No political pundit predicted this happening when the election was called. According to most opinion polls, they were only on 5-6%. D66 was not even invited to the TV debate between the major parties.

Meanwhile, VVD suffered from a setback at the early stage of the election campaign after a mishap of their party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz MP. However they recovered very quickly and retained 22 seats (A loss of only 2), which is quite an achievement considering they had been in the last government with the populist PVV.

I attended the Liberal International Executive Committee meeting in The Hague this year and had many interesting interactions. Like most political geeks, we discussed each other’s election results, and shared what we learnt from each other – mistakes and achievements alike.

As expected, the success of D66 and VVD, the liberal parties of the Netherlands, became the major focus of this conference. In the panel discussion ‘Shock and Yawn: How do Liberal Navigate the Politics of Perpetual Crisis and insecurity’, Fatimazhra Belhirch MP from D66 explained that when they were brainstorming their campaign strategy, ‘We learnt from the Liberal Democrats in the UK about the energy and the positive power of their campaign’. By doing so, they offered voters a clear vision and made a convincing case that they can make a meaningful change to the country.

If you read the D66 manifesto, it is strikingly similar to ours for the GE2024:

• both put housing as our top priority, with promises of 10 new cities/towns and housing targets;
• both prioritise Climate change as another priority;
• both commit to spending 3.5% of GDP on defence;
• both propose modernising our refugee facilities and regulations.

What made their campaign different is how they built a compelling narrative. For example, while discussing the plan to build new cities, they didn’t just give a number. They announced the new city would be built on a new polder in the IJmeer lake between Amsterdam and Almere, providing housing for 126,000 people, requiring the reclamation of 2,500 hectares, and costing around €20 billion.

They also successfully rebranded their leader, Rob Jetten, during the campaign. Few would remember that during the GE2023 campaign he was criticised for being ‘wooden’. 2 years after, by using social media effectively, he became refreshed, dynamic and combative in front of cameras.

What about the other liberal parties? In another panel discussion, ‘Defending Democracy in an Era of Political Manipulation’, Bart Groothuis MEP from VVD explained that instead of allowing the populist parties such as PVV to dominate the nationalist agenda, VVD brought back the national flag back into their own messaging – associating the patriotism with liberal values, and emphasising that Netherlands is a liberal country, not an anti-immigrant one. This is very similar to the flag parade during the Autumn Conference Rally 2025. Ed Davey also clearly stated that our party will be the main opposition to the populist Reform UK.

It is not only our European sister parties learning from us. In the panel discussion ‘Success and Challenges of Coalition Governance’, Ryan Smith MP from Democratic Alliance, South Africa explained that while they were in coalition with African National Congress (ANC), their political advisors learnt the mistake our party made during the coalition years, and advised the party what they should and should not do while negotiating with ANC on the framework of coalition agreement.

Learning is a two way process. Our sister parties learnt from our successes and failures. So let us use our 2024 election result as the foundation, learn from the experience of our sister parties, build our own narrative, and keep fighting against populism!

* Larry is an elected representative in the Federal International Relations Committee and the ‘Against Authoritarianism’ sub-committee. He also chairs the Liberal Democrats Friends of Hong Kong.