Of course, the EU Observer headlines this great news Netherlands embraces far right in EU elections.
The Dutch far-right Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders made the greatest leap forward in the country’s EU elections on Thursday (4 June), with 16.9 percent in exit polls. But the ruling conservatives came top overall.
The result is a major victory for the openly anti-Islamic party, giving it four seats in the European legislature and a possibility that this could rise to five once the final count is completed.
The “ruling conservatives” are projected to win about 20 percent, or five seats. So there’s not a big gap between the two parties. This gives right-thinking Europeans the vapors.
As the xenophobic party’s celebrations got under way, Mr Wilders said his success was a vote against the current administration and an overly costly EU.
“People have had enough of Europe as it is now – a big Europe with Turkey possibly joining – that we spend billions on each year,” he said according to newswires.
It’s extremist and far-right and xenophobic to object to your country being transformed into something unrecognizable and unlivable because of immigrants who are hostile to the culture that is hosting them. God help them, and preserve America from falling this far.
The rise of Mr Wilders – who has described the Koran as fascist and who currently receives 24-hour protection following death threats – clearly came at the expense of governing coalition partners.
Fears amongst Protestant and Catholic voters over the country’s roughly 800,000 Muslim inhabitants helped drive the strong support for the Freedom Party, which was contesting its first European elections.
Mr Wilders, who directed a short film that criticizes the Koran as a “fascist book”, urged voters to reject EU involvement in immigration policy and said Turkey should not join the 27-nation union.
“Turkey as [an] Islamic country should never be in the EU, not in 10 years, not in a million years,” Wilders said after voting.
I don’t know what difference this will make in the EU parliament. The EU government is not responsive to its constituents; it seems that bureaucrats rather than the elected officials run it and make the decisions. But I’m no expert. Maybe having some representative from Wilders’s party will at least give his point of view a hearing.