Ella Vogelaar, the former Labour housing and integration minister sacked last week for being too soft, has launched a strong attack on her party leader Wouter Bos.

In an opinion piece in the NRC newspaper Vogelaar accuses Bos of missing the point in the debate over the integration of immigrants.
Vogelaar was sacked on Friday after a string of behind-closed-doors meetings involving Labour party bosses. Her replacement had already been picked before she was told the party had lost faith in her.
In the NRC, Vogelaar says Bos does not understand that the tone of the debate is as important as the content. She referred to a speech earlier this month in which Bos said he had never heard anyone with a Moroccan background saying ‘I am proud of being Dutch’.
‘He does not understand that as long as the elite keeps talking about the Moroccans, the Turks, the Antilleans, that migrants will find it hard to identify with the Netherlands,’ she wrote.
Too soft
‘Because of their fear of being thought too soft, they do not understand migrants understandable anger at their second-level position in society and make identification with the Netherlands more difficult.’
She also criticised Bos for constantly referring to the hardline approach of Dutch Moroccan politicians such as Rotterdam’s next mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and Ahmed Marcouch, the outspoken Labour leader in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district.
There are other prominent Labour politicians who take a different approach to dealing with integration, she said. Given a choice between separate swimming lessons for migrant women or no lessons at all, one Rotterdam borough council opted for separate lessons. ‘That too can be the first step towards emancipation,’ Vogelaar said.