Wybren van Haga

Wybren Ridley van Haga (born 31 January 1967) is a Dutch politician and engineer who has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2017. He was initially elected as a member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, but was expelled from the party in 2019, causing the third Rutte cabinet to lose its parliamentary majority. Van Haga subsequently sat as an independent MP before joining Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy party, where he was placed second on the party list in the 2021 election. He has since quit Forum for Democracy and created his own political party Belang van Nederland.

Wybren van Haga
Van Haga (2019)
Member of the House of Representatives
Assumed office
31 October 2017
Personal details
Born
Wybren Ridley van Haga

(1967-01-31) 31 January 1967
The Hague, Netherlands
NationalityDutch
Political partyIndependent (2019–2020, since 2021)
Other political
affiliations		Forum for Democracy (2020-2021)
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (1992–2019)
Residence(s)Haarlem, Netherlands
Alma materDelft University of Technology
Occupation
  • Politician
  • businessman
ProfessionEngineer

Biography

Van Haga was born in 1967 in The Hague and grew up in Haarlem. His father is Dutch and his mother was originally from Britain.[1] He studied electrical engineering at the Delft University of Technology.[2] He subsequently worked as an engineer for the Shell Oil Company, and was based variously in Scotland, Gabon and Oman before starting a property development business.[3]

Political career

Van Haga first joined the VVD in 1992. In 2010, he was elected as a municipal councilor in Haarlem.[4] During the 2017 general election, he was elected as an MP for the VVD in the House of Representatives. During the election, his candidacy was endorsed by Labour Party politician and former mayor of Haarlem Bernt Schneiders.[5]

In 2017, Van Haga was investigated over an alleged concealment of a number of problems with local regulations during his time as a councilor.[6] In 2019, he was persuaded to leave the VVD parliamentary group after he was convicted for drunk driving and accused of allegedly interfering with a business operation.[7] This caused the third Rutte cabinet to lose their parliamentary majority. Van Haga subsequently sat as an independent in the house before announcing he had become a member of the Forum for Democracy party.[8]

Van Haga has since left Forum for Democracy in response to a poster put out by the party which compared the COVID-19 lockdowns to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. He has since created his own political party Belang van Nederland (BVNL). The new party has three seats in the Tweede Kamer and Van Haga has described it as 'classical liberal' and 'right-wing'.[9]

Personal life

Van Haga is married and has four children.[10]

References
  1. "Home – 2". vanhaga.nl. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. Tweede Kamerlid Wybren van Haga door VVD-fractie onder curatele gesteld, HP/De Tijd, 6 augustus 2018
  3. 76ste Kamerlid vooral bekend om gedoe met zijn pandjes, NOS, 24 September 2019
  4. Pandjesbezitter Wybren van Haga (VVD) voert politiek alsof het oorlog is, NRC Handelsblad, 11 March 2018
  5. Riessen, Door Paul van (20 December 2017). "Typisch: de innige band van de in opspraak geraakte VVD'er Van Haga met Bernt Schneiders (PvdA)". www.quotenet.nl. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  6. VVD onderzoekt Kamerlid Wybren van Haga, NRC Handelsblad, 19 December 2017
  7. Van Haga is weg, wat doet hij met zijn zetel?, NRC Handelsblad, 24 September 2019
  8. Forum voor Democratie presenteert top 10 kandidaten Tweede Kamer, NOS.nl, 31 October 2020
  9. "Ex-FvD MP Wybren van Haga starts new party". netherlandsnewslive.com. 2 July 2021.
  10. "Home – 2". vanhaga.nl. Retrieved 13 November 2021.


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