The resignation of Labour integration and housing minister Ella Vogelaar is bad news for those who have been alarmed by the hardening attitudes to immigrants in the Netherlands and the apparent willingness of her party leader Wouter Bos to go with the flow.

Vogelaar was not particularly good at her job. And the way she defended housing corporation bosses who ran up a €200m bill investing in an old cruise ship was bizarre.
But when it came to immigration and integration, she was a voice of reason and conciliation in an increasingly hostile atmosphere in The Hague.
She opposed a total ban on burqas, she spoke against Bos when he said polarisation in the integration debate was a good thing and she recognises that Dutch Muslims will have an affect on the way the country’s traditions develop over the next centuries.
And all this did not sit well with the party leadership. The last straw, insiders say, is the way the she abandoned plans to set up a special register of Antillean youths who are considered a problem.
But if there is no other reason to praise her, it is that. A register of potential criminals who are only on the list because of their race is racist. And there is no way round that fact. The Labour party should be deeply ashamed for supporting it. And Vogelaar can leave with her head held high.
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