Editing Labour Party (Netherlands) (section)

=== 1965–1989 ===
[[File:Joop den Uyl 1975.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Joop den Uyl]], party leader (1966–1986) and Prime Minister (1973–1977)]]
In 1965, a conflict in the centre-right cabinet made continuation of the government impossible. The three [[Confessionalism (politics)|confessional]] parties turned toward the PvdA. Together they formed the [[Cals cabinet]], with KVP leader [[Jo Cals]] as prime minister. This cabinet too was short-lived and conflict-ridden. The conflicts culminated in the fall of the Cals cabinet over [[economic policy]].

Meanwhile, a younger generation was attempting to gain control of the PvdA. A group of young PvdA members, calling themselves the [[New Left (Netherlands)|New Left]], changed the party. The New Left believed the party should become oriented towards the [[new social movements]], adopting their anti-parliamentary strategies and their issues, such as [[Feminist movement|women's liberation]], [[Environmentalism|environmental conservation]] and [[Third World]] development. Prominent New Left members were [[Jan Nagel]], [[André van der Louw]] and [[Bram Peper]]. One of their early victories followed the fall of the Cals cabinet. The party Congress adopted a motion that made it impossible for the PvdA to govern with the KVP and its Protestant allies. In response to the growing power of the New Left group, a group of older, [[centrist]] party members, led by Willem Drees' son, [[Willem Drees Jr.]], founded the New Right. They split in 1970, after it was clear that they had lost the conflict with the New Left, and founded a new moderate social democratic party, [[Democratic Socialists '70]] (DS'70).

Under the New Left, the PvdA started a strategy of polarisation, striving for a cabinet based on a progressive majority in parliament. In order to form that cabinet, the PvdA allied itself with smaller progressive parties such as the [[Democrats 66|Democrats '66]] (D'66) and the [[Political Party of Radicals]] (PPR). The alliance was called the Progressive Accord (PAK). In the [[1971 Dutch general election|1971]] and [[1972 Dutch general election|1972 general elections]], these three parties promised to form a cabinet with a radical common programme after the elections. They were unable to gain a majority in either election. In 1971, they were kept out of cabinet, and the party of former PvdA members, DS'70, became a coalition partner in the [[First Biesheuvel cabinet]].

In the 1972 elections, neither the PvdA and its allies nor the KVP and its allies were able to gain a majority. The two sides were forced to work together. [[Joop den Uyl]], the leader of the PvdA, led the cabinet. The cabinet was an [[Cabinet of the Netherlands|extra-parliamentary cabinet]] composed of members of the three progressive parties, the KVP and the ARP. 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ferrera |first1=Maurizio |last2=Rhodes |first2=Martin |title=Recasting European Welfare States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w2exQnhFNyYC&pg=PA235 |publisher=Psychology Press |date=1 January 2000 |isbn=9780714651040 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

The PvdA also faced economic decline and was riddled with personal and ideological conflicts. The relationship between Prime Minister Den Uyl and the KVP [[Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands|Deputy Prime Minister]] [[Dries Van Agt]] was particularly problematic. These conflict culminated when the cabinet fell just before the [[1977 Dutch general election|1977 general election]]. 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. After very long cabinet formation talks, the [[Christian Democratic Appeal]] (CDA), itself a new [[Christian democratic]] political formation composed of KVP, CHU and ARP, formed a government, based on a very narrow majority, with the VVD. The PvdA was left in opposition.

In the [[1981 Dutch general election|1981 general election]], the incumbent CDA–VVD cabinet lost its majority. 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). In the new cabinet led by Van Agt, Den Uyl returned to cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister. The personal and ideological conflict between Van Agt and Den Uyl culminated in the fall of the cabinet just months after it was formed. The VVD and the CDA together had a majority in the [[1982 Dutch general election|1982 general election]] and retained this in the [[1986 Dutch general election|1986 general election]]. The PvdA was left in opposition. During this period the party began to reform. Den Uyl retired from politics in 1986, appointing former [[trade union]] leader [[Wim Kok]] as his successor.

[[File:Wim Kok 1994.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Wim Kok]], [[Third Way]] party leader (1986–2001) and Prime Minister (1994–2002)]]