On a social level they had usually been largely open to immigration and liberal ideas on drugs, euthanasia, abortion, secularization and so on, though recently their stances have hardened a bit as the party is internally split between it's socially conservative and liberal base. While the liberals nominally won the leadership contest the party has increasingly creeped to the Right in an effort to stop members from walking over to the growing right-wing populist movements. This has resulted in the party still outwardly accepting things like decriminalization of drugs, but not actively campaigning for, and even denouncing efforts aiming to modernize the once considered progressive but by now laughably outdated legislation. Additionally the party has taken a harder line on immigration, eliminating most avenues of getting dual citizenship and wishing to limit social security to Dutch citizens only. While also largely divesting and privatizing systems designed to aid with the assimilation of immigrants and refugees.

As a last little bit of trivia: the VVD is also colloquially, and often mockingly, referred to as the "car-owners party" as they are usually vocally opposed to measures which would discourage or disfavor car usage, such as a toll roads, which it refers to as "bullying car drivers".

Another mainstay of Dutch politics the CDA was formed out of the fusion of several, disparate Christian democratic parties, uniting formal rivals like the Catholic People's Party, the Historical Christian Union, and the Anti-Revolutionary Party (the revolution in question being the 1789 French Revolution). Because of this the party shed most of it's more radical elements and become a fairly moderate, mostly conservative movement, with it's Christian values serving more as an inspiration rather than an ideal. Historically the CDA has seen itself as the party of stewardship and morality in the country, favoring stances which emphasize justice, solidarity, and respect for your fellow man. So while not outwardly hostile towards progressive policy they have usually been a counter-weight to it, arguing for tighter restrictions on euthanasia, drug tolerance, prostitution and so on. Economically they tend to be happy to follow along with most liberal policies but are less enthused by the shrinking of the welfare state or the abolition of taxes. They also, historically, were somewhat open to the idea of eco-friendliness. More recently this position has come under pressure as they also historically had been the "farmer's party", receiving a big chunk of the rural and agricultural vote. But as Far-right eco-skepticism and outright Climate Change denialism have made inroads with these populations their stance on it is increasingly tenuous. Like the VVD they have also started to creep more towards the right in response to the rise of right-wing populism, with most of it's more left-leaning base becoming increasingly despondent with the party membership. This is now culminating in an internal party row as one of the provincial branches of the party has agreed to enter a coalition with the Far Right Forum for Democracy.

Today, however, the party is somewhat in crisis. It had been in steady decline after the Kok years and the rise of Right-wing populism eating away at it's voter base, while also losing some of it's progressive votes to it's left. Nevertheless the party persisted in the opposition and eventually came back to power through a (tenuous at times) coalition with the VVD in 2012. However 4 years later they suffered their largest electoral defeat ever, losing 29 seats and only retaining their current 9. Common consensus being that they had conceded too much ground to the increasingly right-wing VVD during their four years in government, and had lost the faith of all but their most loyal constituents. The party has slowly been climbing out of it's rut, backed by it's legacy of delivering capable statesmen, and especially capable local councilmen, but it barely managed to outperform it's allies on the left and is nowhere near it's former numbers in the polls.

Ultimately though, while the party is by no means the smallest it has never, since it's inception, been a part of any government coalition. In fact it has very often labelled itself as a "protest party" and a principled opposition both to the right and to other parties on the left, eschewing the rose as a party symbol in favor of a red tomato (which is still their logo today) Most prominently they clashed with the PvdA, which mostly excluded the party from it's own orbit until recently. They very briefly looked poised to overtake the PvdA in 2012 as their polls surged, adopting a somewhat cleaner, more moderated image in the process. But they failed to keep momentum and did not make major gains in the election, sinking back into being the usual opposition and slowly returning to their roots as an outspoken anti-capitalist party.

It's main focus points on labor rights, social welfare, public education, solidarity, and opposition to laissez-faire capitalism, privatization, and globalization. Socially the party is fairly liberal, but does not pursue this agenda as actively as other left-wing parties or D66 does. In recent times they've grown more nativist in their discourse, having always been skeptical of European Integration, free trade, and labor immigration, and have become a somewhat viable alternative to right-wing populism for voters who do not feel represented by the PvdA's more internationalist Third Way stances.

Greenleft has had a rocky modern history, while having longtime been a "protest" party even further left than the SP (it was one of the more vocal opponents of the Kok administration) they eventually moderated some of their stances towards the more general liberal currents of the country, and started eyeing possible coalition accords. After supporting a controversial Dutch police mission to the Kunduz province in Afghanistan the party's pacifist base started to turn against it, resulting in a huge electoral loss in the next election. After a leadership change it has recently climbed back up again, attaining their all-time high with 14 seats in the last election.

Today Greenleft is one of the bigger leftist parties, with it's main electorate concentrated in university towns and other urban areas with young, educated population. This has given them something of a yuppie image in recent times. This makes them a favorite target of populist right-wing derision, who essentially view them as either the quintessential "snowflake millennials" or elitist bohemian intellectuals. Nevertheless the party has remained relatively stable in the polls and was briefly considered as a partner for the first coalition after the election. Talks ultimately broke down on the subject of immigration and Greenleft has been a somewhat consistent opposition party ever since. They have continued to argue in favor of their vision of the "tolerant society" with a focus on ecology, civil rights, drug legislation, increased welfare and education spending etc.

Surfing the wave of populist rhetoric unleashed by Pim Fortuyn in the early 2000s the PVV is a party almost entirely centered around it's figurehead, Geert Wilders. His primary position could probably be summed up as "anti-islam", which has been one of it's main talking points for a long time. Mostly their party programme includes demands such as the total stop of immigration from "Muslim countries", the suppression of the Qu'ran, a law against the construction of mosques and even perhaps demolishing existing mosques, and the deportation of all non-naturalized immigrants or citizens with an immigrant background who commit a crime. On top of this and a demand to leave the EU, the PVV has also flirted with demands to maintain the welfare state, but only for Dutch-born citizens, upping the speed limit to 140km/h, lowering fuel taxes and ecological investments, and lowering taxes by shrinking the government. The PVV, by and large, refuses to ever expand further on the practicality of these subjects or to have them independently judged on their costs, preferring to have all of their stances fit on a single piece of A4 paper.

In 2010, after a large electoral victory, they agreed to enter a government coalition with the CDA and VVD as an informal partner. Meaning they would generally agree to support the government in exchange for several concessions. The partnership proved extremely fragile, with Wilders frequently either refusing to uphold the agreement or embarrassing it's partners through his multiple scandals and controversies. In the 2012 the cabinet was dissolved and after the next election Wilders once went into opposition, where he has remained ever since.

The toxicity of the partnership and Wilders' general political disposition have won the PVV a respectable amount of seats but have ironically all but made it impossible for the party to govern. As almost every other party has informally agreed never to cooperate with them. Despite being the second biggest party in the last election (though by a single seat) the PVV was never approached as a potential coalition partner, more or less neutering their political power, though it retains an active support base it is losing ground fast to contenders further on it's right such as the Forum for Democracy.

While it's pretty much an open secret that the FvD is a formal Dutch version of the largely online Alt-right, it still bills itself as a classically conservative party and tries to avoid the kind of vulgar controversies which Wilders often finds himself in. Not that the party is particularly free from controversy, between it's figurehead Thierry Baudet's past association with French Crypto-fascists and white supremacists, to his statements concerning the Dutch "Boreal" culture he is attempting to safeguard (Boreal being essentially code for "white"), or his shameless embrace of dogwhistles such as "cultural marxism", Forum has found itself with no shortage of media attention and scrutiny. But unlike the PVV Forum often downplays, covers up, or tries to move the conversation away, often accusing it's detractors from being Left-wing agitators or "snowflakes" who are over-focused on minor infractions, and it seems to be working for them.

In terms of policy FvD is a land of contrasts. On the one hand it has completely committed itself to a rhetoric of direct democracy, climate change skepticism/denialism, anti-government (arguing for it's complete dissolution over a period of 10 years in order to balance the budget), pro big business and deregulation, pro-police and anti-EU. But like the PVV it never fully elaborates on this in anything but the vaguest terms, and also refuses to submit their budget plans to independent checkers for scrutiny.

All in all the FvD is more or less a newer, slicker, more "civil" version of the PVV. They tend to play on the same fears and cultural anxieties of people, but targeted more at wealthy middle class voters who feel scared of losing their cultural heritage, while also sneaking in common Alt-Right talking points and maintaining relations with known crypto-fascist political actors.

Traditionally they had remained a fringe party but are somewhat more prominent now due to their participation in the coalition government. Something it's base isn't always keen on, since it involves cooperating with D66, their polar opposite on social issues, the CDA, a party it specifically distanced itself from, and the VVD, their polar opposite on fiscal policy and environmental issues. Some commentators have even argued the CU is essentially just being bullied into compliance by the bigger parties by threatening to pain them as troublemakers and unreliable if they compromise the coalition government. Ultimately though they have continued in their own little niche and don't seem to be going anywhere fast.

The SGP's programme has remained mostly the same since it's inception. It opposes any form of secularism or freedom of religion, women's rights (women were not allowed in the party until a legal case in 2006 more or less forced them), universal suffrage (they argue votes should only be given to the father of a household), and of course reproductive rights, LGBT+ rights etc.

The SGP is mostly ignored as a political entity outside of it's stronghold areas in some of the more insular communities of the Dutch Bible Belt. It recently caught flak after several of it's members publicly signed and published a modified version of the Nashville Declaration, solidifying their opposition to LGBT+ rights. This drew widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum, including sitting cabinet members.

As a political party they tend to mostly make a lot of noise, cite a lot of bad statistics and generally pander to their audience of soon-to-be retirees or pensioners nervous about the future of their fortunes. This may seem a little dismissive but the party can be pretty secretive about it's inner dealings, so it's hard to get a read on them from the outside.

DENK draws most of it's votes from young Dutch-Morrocan or Dutch-Turkish voters in big cities. Campaigning on a platform of multicularism and identity politics. In terms of policy it often shares most leftist support for an expanded welfare state, but argues for further government action against racial discrimination and inequality, including a proposal for a national "racism register".