THE HAGUE – The Dutch Member of Parliament Raymond Knops, State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations in the previous cabinet, is leaving national politics. He will become chairman of the board of the Dutch Industry for Defense and Security. With this switch, the former military officer says he will return to the world of defense and security.  

Knops started his political career in 1998 as a counselor and later alderman in the Limburg municipality of Horst aan de Maas. In 2005 he came to the House of Representatives for the first time. He became Secretary of State in 2017 and even briefly held a ministerial post during Kajsa Ollongren's sick leave. But there was no room for him in the new cabinet that took office last year.  

Knops himself, who was campaign manager in the 2021 parliamentary elections that were disappointing for the CDA, would certainly have wanted to continue as minister or state secretary. "But that's how life goes sometimes." 

He also suggested that he would have been dismissed because otherwise there would not be enough women in the cabinet, but those directly involved in the cabinet formation contradicted this.  

As a Member of Parliament, Knops was no longer so visible in the past two years, although he spoke on a number of important justice issues. He did get into the news because of a heated argument with journalists from NRC and De Limburger, who had accused him of favoritism surrounding the purchase of a piece of land in the municipality where he was previously alderman.  

The newspapers eventually had to rectify it, but Knops received a lot of criticism for the way in which he had spoken about the journalists in court.  

“It was a great honor and pleasure to contribute on behalf of my party, together with many others, to a better Netherlands,” says Knops about his political career. With the same passion I will continue this mission, albeit from a different role.