The Higher Education (HE) work environment has become a global market with an increased use of English as the medium of instruction in many European universities. This change, which has accelerated since the start of the new millennium, has recently led to criticism in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. This paper deals with the discourses about the role of Dutch and English in Dutch HE in a law proposed to attain internationalization ‘in balance’. The analysis outlines the language ideologies that exist in the manifestos of the major Dutch political parties during the 2023 election regarding internationalization in HE and in the discussion of the proposed law by university newspapers. Through a critical analysis that focuses on text as well as macro-structures of power, the latest anti-internationalization political discourse reveals how English is framed as a threat to Dutch identity, and how multilingualism is absent from the discussion. The proposed increase in the use of Dutch in HE is utilized as a way to fight undesired migration and to bring Dutch students back to the forefront. With the analysis of both political discourse and media discourse, a layered intertextuality shows that the media echo and thus normalize the instrumentalization of both languages: Dutch to exclude on the one hand and English to prosper on the other hand. At the same time, some elements of a counter-discourse are found in university newspapers, which voice concerns over using the Dutch language to attack the international and multilingual academic environment.