BIJ1

BIJ1 (lit. 'together'), formerly known as Article 1 (Artikel 1), is a political party in the Netherlands. It was founded in Amsterdam in 2016 by Sylvana Simons, a television personality who was formerly connected to another party, Denk. Edson Olf has led the party since September 2023.

Foundation
In 2016, Sylvana Simons joined Denk, a political movement founded by MPs Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk after leaving the Labour Party following an internal dispute over the party's position on integration. In December of the same year, Simons left the movement as she was disappointed by the lack of support she received from the party during a period of intense death threats. She also felt that Denk was becoming increasingly conservative and losing interest in progressive causes such as LGBT rights.

Shortly after her departure from Denk, Simons founded her own party, named Article 1. The name referred to the first article of the Dutch constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender or any other reason.

2017 general election
On 15 March 2017, Article 1 contested the general election with Simons as lead candidate. Other prominent candidates were anthropologist Gloria Wekker and former Socialist Party senator Anja Meulenbelt. The party failed to get enough endorsements in the provinces of Friesland and Drenthe to get on the ballot.

Article 1 received 28,700 votes (0.27%), failing to reach the 0.67% threshold to get a seat in the House of Representatives. Most of the party's support came from municipalities with a large Afro-Dutch population, such as Amsterdam (2.5%), Almere (1.9%), Diemen (1.7%) and Rotterdam (1.3%). The party also achieved an above average result in the Caribbean Netherlands (1.6%). The party scored negligibly in the more rural municipalities and cities with little or no immigrant population.

Name change
The party was sued by anti-discrimination think tank Art.1 for trademark infringement. The judge's verdict was in favor of Art.1, and therefore Simons was forced to change the name of the party. On 29 October 2017, the new name was announced: BIJ1. It refers to the Dutch word bijeen, which translates to "together".

2018 municipal elections
In March 2018, the party only contested in the municipal election in Amsterdam. Sylvana Simons was again elected as lead candidate. During the campaign, one of the party's candidates was accused of lying on her résumé, in which she wrongfully claimed to be a psychiatrist. Her candidacy was eventually withdrawn.

Despite this incident, the party won 6,571 votes (1.9%), just enough to win a seat in the municipal council. The best results for BIJ1 were in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, especially in the Bijlmermeer, which is home to a large Surinamese migrant population.

2021 general election
In February 2020, the party announced that it would compete in the 2021 general election. The candidate list was approved by the general assembly in November 2020. Sylvana Simons was again selected as lead candidate, while anti-racism activist Quinsy Gario was placed on the second spot. The party was supported by prominent lijstduwers, such as academic Gloria Wekker and actresses Anousha Nzume and Romana Vrede. The party achieved 0.84% of the vote share, securing a seat in the House for the first time.

2023 general election and internal problems
In 2021, Quinsy Gario was suspended from the party following behaviour allegations. He later cancelled his party membership which prompted the BIJ1's entire executive board in The Hague to resign in protest. In June 2022, the party's national chairwoman Jursica Mills left after claiming in a letter that BIJ1 had become a party of "toxicity, cronyism and contradictions." In September 2022, the board of the Amsterdam branch quit after accusing B1J1's leadership of interfering in the selection of the a new faction leader following Jazie Veldhuyzen's resignation and raised accusations of fraud within the party. At the same time, Gloria Wekker also accused the party of containing racism, misogyny and cancel culture within its ranks.

After the November 2023 snap election was triggered following the collapse of the fourth Rutte cabinet, Simons announced on 24 July that she would not run for re-election and would stand down as lead candidate for the party citing health reasons. Around the same time, several reports emerged of growing instability within BIJ1 which had built up over previous years. Two BIJ1 Amsterdam councilors also quit the party before Simons' announcement, citing a "toxic climate" in the party and stated Simons had also insufficiently supported them which Simons denied. It was subsequently announced Edson Olf would lead BIJ1 into the election. The party lost its seat in the House of Representatives. In December 2023, the party was forced to repay 127,000 euros in parliamentary subsidy payments after failing to provide necessary documents to the House finance committee to show the subsidies had been spent correctly.

Ideology
According to the party, its two pillars are radical equality and economic justice. The party supports the LGBT community, an end to ethnic profiling, and intersectionality. Because of the party's left-wing radicalism, it is often cited along with socialist parties and movements. Rebekka Timmer, member of the commission for the party program and number three on the list for the 2021 elections, however, shows an indifferent view in regards to the term communism, but admits to drawing inspiration from anti-capitalist thinkers, such as Karl Marx. Founder, Sylvana Simons opposes communism as it is envisioned by China and the Soviet Union, calling it state capitalism.

The party advocates the independence and recognition of the State of Palestine and the Republic of South Maluku. It also supports paying reparations to former Dutch colonies such as the Dutch Caribbean, Suriname and Indonesia. According Simons the party represents Afro-Dutch voters.

Economically, the party calls for a single-payer healthcare system, the closing of the gender wage gap and replacing gross domestic product with the concept of gross national happiness as the dominant economic indicator.

Controversies
In November 2021, the Amsterdam branch of BIJ1 sparked controversy after releasing a preliminary copy of the party's election program which referred to the Remembrance of the Dead commemoration for Jewish and Dutch resistance victims as "basically racist" and argued that the commemoration should include memorials to victims of Dutch violence from South America and Asia and to "resistance heroes" from former Dutch colonies. The program stated "as long as this remains the case, Amsterdam will not accommodate this commemoration." The program statement was met with condemnation from other political parties and the Central Jewish Consultation who called it "a direct insult to the relatives of the more than 100,000 murdered Jews in the Netherlands, most of them from Amsterdam."