Eva Lotte Louise Joan Vlaardingerbroek (born 3 September 1996) is a Dutch right-wing pundit and activist. A legal philosopher by education,[1][2] she has been particularly vocal about the issues surrounding farmers in the Dutch farmers' protests and is noted for her criticism of the Dutch government under prime minister Mark Rutte. She has made numerous appearances with American conservative pundit Tucker Carlson on his current affairs program Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and with Mark Steyn on his eponymous British talk show on the GB News.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek
Vlaardingerbroek at CPAC Hungary, 2023
Born
Eva Lotte Louise Vlaardingerbroek

(1996-09-03) 3 September 1996 (age 27)
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Alma materUtrecht University (LL.B.)
Leiden University (LL.M.)
Occupation(s)Pundit, activist
Political partyFvD (2016–2020)

Early life edit

Vlaardingerbroek was born in Amsterdam on 3 September 1996 to a Catholic mother and a Protestant father who both work in the classical music industry. Her father, Kees Vlaardingerbroek [nl], is a musicologist and former concert director. She is the granddaughter of Continental Reformed Protestant theologist Johannes Vlaardingerbroek. She has a younger brother.[citation needed]

Education and political career edit

Vlaardingerbroek grew up in Hilversum and studied law at Utrecht University, where she participated in the Utrecht Law College honours program. After studying for some time in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and completing her bachelor's degree, she began the master's degree in Encyclopedia and Philosophy of Law at Leiden University. She wrote her thesis on The Contractualization of Sex in the #MeToo Era and completed her master's with honours.[3]

During her studies, Vlaardingerbroek joined the far-right political party Forum for Democracy (FvD) in 2016. In 2019, she gave a speech against modern feminism at that year's party congress.[4] In 2019, she took up an internship with the FvD faction in the European Parliament in Brussels. After that, Vlaardingerbroek left Brussels behind to work in Leiden as a lecturer-researcher, during which she published several opinion pieces in Elsevier Weekblad.[4] In October 2020, she put her position at the university and her dissertation on hold to focus fully on a political career, followed by FvD leader Thierry Baudet's announcement on 31 October that Vlaardingerbroek would fill the fifth spot on the party's candidate list for the House of Representatives.[citation needed]

After a dispute over Baudet's leadership and discriminatory remarks made by members of the youth wing publicly escalated in November 2020,[5][6] Vlaardingerbroek announced on WNL's morning show Goedemorgen Nederland on 26 November that she had chosen sides against Baudet.[7] Later that same day, Vlaardingerbroek and Joost Eerdmans, Annabel Nanninga, and Nicki Pouw-Verweij released a joint statement announcing their departure from the party.[8] For the time being, this meant the end of Vlaardingerbroek's political career. In April 2023, Algemeen Dagblad published an exposé that revealed how in 2021, months after the conflict and split, FvD had threatened her and other former members with hefty fines for allegedly breaching party confidentiality. Vlaardingerbroek was never officially served nor found guilty of breaching party confidentiality and described it as an attempt to scare her into silence.[9]

In November 2023, Vlaardingerbroek stated that she would vote for the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the 2023 Dutch general election.[10]

Opinion work and activism edit

In December 2019, Het Parool stated that Vlaardingerbroek "shocked the feminist Netherlands with a speech against modern feminism",[11] in which she called it "a form of hardcore cognitive dissonance". She stated that "neo-feminists have no reflection on what is retrograde or problematic about multiculturalism, especially on the subject that interests them: sexism. So, this feminism is indeed one of the biggest shams of our time."[12] She received scathing criticism by a number of Dutch commentators for her remarks, after Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant and some of their journalists branded Vlaardingerbroek the "shield maiden of the far right" and an "Aryan princess" who constituted a danger to the rights of women and minorities.[1][13] In an interview with Bert Dijkstra of De Telegraaf, Vlaardingerbroek fought back, calling the article a politically motivated "character assassination".[1] Vlaardingerbroek has also spoken against abortion, stating: "Life begins at conception. No matter how small it is, it is sacred. To say otherwise is both morally and intellectually hypocritical. Therefore, it is not up to you to take that life away. It's not up to you to end it. It's not your body, so it's not your choice, simple."[14]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vlaardingerbroek spoke out as a firm critic of lockdowns, mRNA vaccines, and other COVID-19 restrictions, stating that the Western world was "losing its freedom".[15] In January 2021, Vlaardingerbroek made a live appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight stating that Europe was "heading towards a new system, a tyrannical regime, of mass surveillance and control".[16] Also in 2021, Vlaardingerbroek worked for some time in Sweden as presenter of her own pan-European talk show "Let's Talk About It" on the YouTube channel of Swedish media outlet Riks,[17] which is affiliated with the far-right party Sverigedemokraterna.[18] On 1 January 2022, she began working as a legal advisor at a law firm, where she focused on human rights and civil litigation.[19] After more than four months, this employment was terminated.[20]

In April 2022, Vlaardingerbroek spoke at the Brussels National Conservatism Conference in Brussels in which she called on people to "reject Globalism and embrace God".[21] In early July 2022, Vlaardingerbroek spoke out about the Dutch nitrogen crisis on the American television channel Fox News in conversation with Tucker Carlson.[22] In reference to the Great Replacement and Great Reset conspiracy theories, she claimed that the crisis was being used to steal land from farmers in order to build homes on it for immigrants.[23][24] Vlaardingerbroek has also opined in her appearances with Carlson that the surge in violent crime in Sweden could be linked to what she described as "extreme" immigration policies.[25]

Vlaardingerbroek regularly appears as a commentator on Mark Steyn's eponymous talk show on the British television channel GB News,[26] as well as on the right-wing populist YouTube channel Achtung, Reichelt! by Julian Reichelt, the former editor-in-chief of the German tabloid Bild.[citation needed] On 11 March 2023, Vlaardingerbroek participated in the pro-farmer Zuiderpark protest against the government in The Hague.[27] At the protests, Vlaardingerbroek stated that "our farmers are fighting against the worst kind of injustice".[28]

Personal life edit

Until late 2020, Vlaardingerbroek was in a relationship with French author Julien Rochedy, who between 2012 and 2014 had been president of Génération Nation, the youth wing of the French right-wing populist party Front National.[29][30] During the conflict within the FvD in November 2020, which had seen Vlaardingerbroek publicly turn against party leader Thierry Baudet, Baudet revealed that Vlaardingerbroek and he had had a love affair in 2017,[31] to which Vlaardingerbroek responded that it had been nothing more than a brief fling.[32]

On 29 March 2022, Will Witt, former commentator for the American conservative advocacy group PragerU, announced that he and Vlaardingerbroek had become engaged.[33] The couple had been introduced by PragerU co-founder Dennis Prager about a year prior.[34]

In April 2023, Vlaardingerbroek was received into the Catholic faith alongside her father as a member of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory on Warwick Street in Westminster, England. She took Joan as her Confirmation name.[2]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c "Dienstmaagd van radicaal rechts toont ware gezicht" (in Dutch). De Telegraaf. 14 December 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  2. ^ a b Pentin, Edward (23 April 2023). "Prominent Dutch Philosopher and Convert Charts Her Path to the Catholic Church". National Catholic Register. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
  3. ^ Vlaardingerbroek, Eva (2 February 2020). "Houd de overheid uit uw slaapkamer: gevaren van een nieuwe zedenwet". Elsevier Weekblad (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  4. ^ a b "'Juist na zo'n aanval komt idealisme in me naar boven'" (in Dutch). EW Magazine. January 2020. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  5. ^ "'Jongeren FvD blijven extreemrechtse berichten versturen'". Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (in Dutch). 21 November 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  6. ^ "Brief over Baudet vol ruzie en complottheorieën". Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (in Dutch). 25 November 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  7. ^ "Dit zijn de hoofdrolspelers in de rel rond Forum voor Democratie". RTL Nieuws (in Dutch). 26 November 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  8. ^ "Eerdmans, Nanninga, Pouw en Vlaardingerbroek weg bij FvD". Trouw (in Dutch). 26 November 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  9. ^ Nieuwenhuis, Marcia; Hartog, Tobias den (8 April 2023). "Klachten over verziekte werksfeer bij Forum: 'Het beest was ontwaakt, Thierry ging helemaal los op mij'". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  10. ^ @EvaVlaar (21 November 2023). "Ik stem morgen op de PVV, specifiek op @Martinbosma_pvv" (Tweet) (in Dutch) – via Twitter.
  11. ^ "'Rechts handelt uit sentiment en verliest de realiteit uit het oog'". Het Parool (in Dutch). 19 December 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  12. ^ "Le féminisme à la sauce Schiappa renforce le nationalisme" (in French). Causeur. 16 January 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  13. ^ "GeenStijl: Volkskrant zou Eva Vlaardingerbroek doen". www.geenstijl.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  14. ^ Nieuwenhuis, Marcia; Hartog, Tobias den (7 September 2023). "Eva Vlaardingerbroek spreekt zich uit tegen abortus: 'Leven is heilig'". Stirezo PRO LIFE (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  15. ^ Dear Western World: we're losing our freedom., retrieved 23 October 2023
  16. ^ "Legal expert: European vaccine mandates are the beginning of a 'social credit system' | Fox News Video". Fox News. 19 January 2022. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  17. ^ "Let's Talk About It". Riks, YouTube. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  18. ^ "Eva Vlaar gaat internationaal met eigen talkshow" (in Dutch). Geenstijl. 29 March 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  19. ^ "Spraakmakende Leidse juristen Blommestijn en Vlaardingerbroek naar nieuwe mensenrechtensectie van Maes Law (video)". Leidsch Dagblad. 4 December 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  20. ^ "Advocaat is coronazaken zat en zegt samenwerking met bekende critici op" (in Dutch). Algemeen Dagblad. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  21. ^ "Reject Globalism and Embrace God". Brussels National Conservatism Conference, Youtube. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  22. ^ "Boeren blijiven wereldnieuws" (in Dutch). De Telegraaf. 9 July 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  23. ^ "Tijd om deze krankzinnige periode vanuit een ander perspectief te bezien" (in Dutch). de Volkskrant. 8 July 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  24. ^ "Why Tucker Carlson and the global right wing have taken up the cause of Dutch farmers". Grid News. 13 July 2022. Archived from the original on 18 July 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  25. ^ "Sweden's violent crime surge could be linked to 'extreme' immigration policies". Fox News. 12 June 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  26. ^ "We Laughed No More". Steynonline.com. March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  27. ^ "'Vlaardingerbroek weg bij Zaterdagmatinee wegens discriminatie en wangedrag'". BNNVARA (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  28. ^ "Eva Vlaardingerbroek: Our farmers are fighting against the worst kind of injustice". World News Network. 12 March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  29. ^ "Dienstmaagd van radicaal rechts' toont ware gezicht". De Telegraaf. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  30. ^ "Liefdesrelatie met Thierry? Meer een kwestie van: foutje, bedankt". De Telegraaf (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  31. ^ "Pijnlijke tv: Thierry Baudet verdrietig na uitspraken ex-geliefde" (in Dutch). Media Courant. November 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  32. ^ "Eva Vlaardingerbroek over 'liefdesrelatie' met Thierry Baudet: 'Het was een fling'". Linda.nl (in Dutch). 11 December 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  33. ^ "Will Witt on Instagram: "God created the world, the Dutch created the Netherlands, and Eva made Will the happiest man on earth."". Instagram. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
  34. ^ PBD Podcast | EP 138 | Influencer Will Witt, retrieved 26 April 2023