The Labour Party (Dutch: Partij van de Arbeid [pɑrˈtɛi vɑn də ˈʔɑrbɛit], abbreviated as PvdA [ˌpeːveːdeːˈjaː, -deːˈʔaː] or P van de A [ˌpeː vɑn də ˈʔaː]) is a social democratic[2] political party in the Netherlands.

Prime Ministers from the Labour Party have been Willem Drees (1948–1958), Joop den Uyl (1973–1977) and Wim Kok (1994–2002).

The party fell to nine seats in the House of Representatives at the 2017 general election, making it the seventh-largest faction in the chamber—its worst showing ever.

However, the party rebounded with a first-place finish in the 2019 European Parliament election in the Netherlands, winning six of 26 seats, with 19% of the vote.

In the European Parliament, where the Labour Party has four seats, it is part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

They came to the consensus that the pre-war fragmentation of Dutch political life, known as "Pillarisation", should be overcome after the war in a so-called Breakthrough.

They were joined by individuals from Catholic resistance group Christofoor, as well as some of the more progressive members of the Protestant Christian Historical Union (CHU).

In 1948, some of the left-liberal members, led by former VDB leader Pieter Oud, left the PvdA after concluding it had become too socialist for their liking.

The New Left believed the party should become oriented towards the new social movements, adopting their anti-parliamentary strategies and their issues, such as women's liberation, environmental conservation and Third World development.

Prominent New Left members were Jan Nagel, André van der Louw and Bram Peper.

The party Congress adopted a motion that made it impossible for the PvdA to govern with the KVP and its Protestant allies.

Under the New Left, the PvdA started a strategy of polarisation, striving for a cabinet based on a progressive majority in parliament.

The cabinet attempted to radically reform government, society and the economy, and a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted during its time in office, such as significant increases in welfare payments and the indexation of benefits and the minimum wage to the cost of living.

The PvdA came first in that election, but the ideological and personal conflict between Van Agt and Den Uyl prevented the formation of a new centre-left cabinet.

The CDA remained the largest party, but it was forced to co-operate with the PvdA and D'66 (the PPR had left the alliance, after losing in the 1977 election).

The personal and ideological conflict between Van Agt and Den Uyl culminated in the fall of the cabinet just months after it was formed.

Den Uyl retired from politics in 1986, appointing former trade union leader Wim Kok as his successor.

Kok became a very popular Prime Minister; he was not a partisan figure but combined successful technocratic policies with the charisma of a national leader.

The PvdA was expected to perform very well in the 2002 general election; however, the political rise of Pim Fortuyn frustrated these hopes.

The loss was blamed on the uncharismatic new leader Melkert, the perceived arrogance of the PvdA and the inability to answer the right-wing populist issues Fortuyn raised, especially immigration and integration.

The government formed by CDA, VVD and the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) fell after a very short period.

Personal and ideological conflicts between Bos and the CDA leader Jan Peter Balkenende prevented the formation of a CDA–PvdA cabinet.

The PvdA lost the race for Prime Minister to the CDA after suffering a loss of nine seats in the 2006 general election.

The then-mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, took Wouter Bos' place as leader of the PvdA following the latter quitting politics.

Following the election the party entered a governing coalition with the VVD under Mark Rutte, with Labour's Lodewijk Asscher becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

Opinion polls suggested that popular support for the PvdA fell into a gradual decline in the years after the 2012 election.

In the 2017 general election, the PvdA suffered the biggest defeat in Dutch electoral history, receiving only 5.7% of the votes and losing 29 of its 38 seats.

Ahead of the 2021 general election, Asscher resigned from the party leadership due to his part in the childcare benefits scandal.

[14][15] On 17 July 2023, the party and Green Left announced that they would contest the upcoming 2023 general election with a common policy programme and joint electoral list.

[20] The PvdA joined the Progressive Alliance, a new international network for social democratic political parties, at its founding event on 22 May 2013.