#politiek Recently, FVD MP Hiddema party leader Baudet recommended “stop the Twitter factory”. The young man did not listen, and threw out an ultimatum on Sunday after Buitenhof: there was an interim action if Buitenhof did not rectify. In the broadcast, host Natalie Righton said that Baudet in the Chamber last week claimed that “the EU has a preconceived plan to replace the white European race for African migrants”. According to Buitenhof, these were correct paraphrases by Baudet and other politicians — after which FVD announced a course to court.

Now Baudet could use advice from group companion Hiddema on this point too. Hiddema demanded rectification of cartoonist Ruben L. Oppenheimer in 2014, after using Hiddema's typing 'seedy lawyer' in the Limburg press. The judge sentenced the cartoonist to rectify. But the Court of Appeal ruled in 2015 that “freedom of expression outweighs Hiddema's honor and good name”. Interesting, given Baudt's current case. This statement is also in line with the official FVD position on freedom of expression: except for calls for violence, “everything should be allowed,” the party said. Baudet also announced this in an NRC column at the end of 2016. Apparently, he just slipped off this Sunday.

In addition, an interim dispute on this issue obliges the court to interpret the legislator's intention: the judge must now decide where freedom of expression is restricted. The type of “interference in politics” by judges that Baudet has turned against in big words over the last few months. Apparently, I forgot.

Baudt's literal statements from last week differ from the summary of Buitenhof. Baudet did not talk about “race”. But in the Chamber he reiterated that the EU willingly brings migrants from Africa to “weaken the national identity”. He again claimed that the EU has intentions that previously had Napoleon and Hitler. Already in 2015, he preferred the Netherlands to remain “dominant blank”. And recently he tweeted a fiction, falsely presenting NS card controllers as “Moroccans” who “harassed” girlfriends.

Everyone has the right to their own lightness. But if anyone so frivolously disseminates unproven statements about the intentions of political opponents, and fabrications about innocent people, who are so sure about the importance of freedom of expression and the non-interference of judges in politics, you might be allowed some modesty in suing other people's statements. And indeed, it might be better to 'stop the Twitter factory' to start with. Tom-Jan Meeus ( t.meeus@nrc.nl ; @tomjanmeeus)

Points that Baudet apparently forgot