PHILIPSBURG:--- Nation, Opportunity, Wealth, (NOW) Member of Parliament Lyndon Lewis has issued a forceful rebuke of recent statements circulating on social media allegedly made by Dutch far-right politician MP Thierry Baudet, who allegedly proposed repopulating St. Maarten with hundreds of thousands of Dutch nationals to assert “complete control” over the island. The comments, made during a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee for Kingdom Relations, have sparked outrage across the Dutch Caribbean and beyond.
MP Lewis called Baudet’s remarks “deeply offensive, dangerous, and steeped in outdated colonial thinking.” He warned that such rhetoric undermines the core principles of equality, respect, and mutual partnership that should govern relations within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
"The Dutch in the past had restrictions on their own people, prohibiting them from overpopulating the then Netherland Antilles by the Admittance and Expulsion Law (LTU)." Lewis said.
The idea that our island should be overrun and reshaped by foreign settlers to serve someone’s imperial fantasy is not only deeply insulting, it’s a direct threat to the dignity, identity, and autonomy of our people,” said Lewis. “This is not 1625. It is 2025, and St. Maarten will not tolerate any return to colonialist ideology, no matter how it’s dressed up.”
Baudet, leader of the far-right Forum for Democracy party, allegedly suggested during his appearance that if 300,000 to 500,000 Dutch citizens were relocated to St. Maarten, the island would become “completely ours” and fall “under control,” turning over the Netherlands. He further proposed the Dutch Caribbean into a tax haven and a hub for economic experiments, comparing it to Hong Kong and Dubai, while suggesting the exploitation of natural resources in nearby waters.
MP Lewis described the remarks as a “disgraceful display of historical amnesia and political extremism,” noting Baudet’s known history of promoting racist and nationalist conspiracy theories. "The Sint Maarten people will not tolerate his nonsensical approach," Lewis stated.
‘’Mr Baudet’s comments are not economic proposals, they are fantasies of dominance, rooted in a disturbing worldview that sees Caribbean people as expendable and Caribbean territory as exploitable, he said. Such rhetoric has no place in the past nor in modern democratic discourse and must be roundly rejected by every responsible member or leader within our Kingdom.”
MP Lewis also urged his colleagues in both the Kingdom Parliament and the Dutch government to distance themselves clearly and publicly from Baudet’s vision.
Silence or lukewarm responses in the face of this kind of dangerous speech are a form of complicity. If the Kingdom is truly committed to justice, equality, and decolonization, then it must condemn these ideas in the strongest terms.”
MP Lewis reiterated his commitment to safeguarding the sovereignty, identity, and democratic rights of St. Maarten and the Dutch Caribbean on a whole and its people, while advocating for a Kingdom based on mutual respect—not imperial nostalgia.