Geert Wilders came fourth in European elections in the Netherlands on Thursday night, confounding predictions that he would lead a populist and far-Right backlash against the European Union across the continent.

Dutch exit polls put the far-Right and anti-Islam leader on 12.2 per cent of the vote, putting him behind all the pro-EU mainstream political parties. ‘Definitive’ exit polls put him behind the ruling centrist VVD on 12.3 per cent and almost three per cent behind the pro-EU D66 liberals and Christian Democrats, each on over 15 per cent.

Previous opinion polls had put Mr Wilders in the lead but there was widespread controversy over his alliance with the France’s Front National and the exit polls suggested that his share of the vote fell, compared with 2009, by 4.8 percentage points.

The result is a major blow to Mr Wilders who will lose two seats in the European Parliament with his MEPs now reduced to three out a total of 26 Dutch representatives.

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Dutch Jewish groups have spoken out against Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, after he told supporters that he would reduce the number of Moroccans in the country, the JTA has reported.

Mr Wilders asked his supporters at a post-election celebration in March whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans”. To their chants of “fewer”, he said that he would “take care of it”.

Although Mr Wilder’s strident support for Israel and his anti-Islamist stance has made him popular among Jews at home and abroad, Dutch Jewish umbrella group, the CJO, released a statement saying they were horrified by his comments about Moroccans.

The Dutch Jewish weekly NIW last month claimed that, “Dutch Jewry is fed up with Geert Wilders.” Jewish groups in Holland were known to be deeply uncomfortable with Mr Wilders’s decision to forge an alliance in the European Parliament with the National Front, the French far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.

Jewish Chronicle, 30 April 2014

The Liberal democratic party D66 would be the biggest party in parliament if there were a general election tomorrow, according to a new poll by Maurice de Hond. The poll says D66, which made huge gains in the recent local elections, would win 25 out of 150 seats in a general election with 16.6% of the vote.

Geert Wilders anti-Islam PVV would win 23 seats, or 15.3% of the vote and remains in second place. The PVV has lost the equivalent of four seats since Geert Wilders led his supporters in an anti-Moroccan chant on local election night.

The De Hond poll puts the Socialists on 22 seats or 14.6% and the VVD and CDA both on 21 – or 14%. This means the five big parties are separated by just a few percent. Labour, currently in the coalition government with the VVD, recorded its worst score ever in a De Hond poll, with just 11 seats.

The European elections take place on May 22 and Wilders is hoping to emerge at the biggest party. The PVV currently has four seats in the European parliament.

Dutch News, 30 March 2014

PVV-leader Geert Wilders has come under fire from politicians after a comment he made on the campaign trail at a market in The Hague on Wednesday. Wilders said that voters want “a city with less problems and, if possible less Moroccans.”

Geert Wilders was on a market in Loosduinen with frontrunner for the PVV, Leon de Jong, campaigning for municipal council elections which are set for the 19th of March. They were handing out guilders in protest of the euro. During the visit, Wilders was questioned by NOS reporter Michiel Breedveld.

“Most important are the people here on the market, the Hagenaars, Hagenezen and Scheveningers”, Wilders said. “We are doing it for those people. They are voting for a safer and more social city with less problems and, if possible also less Moroccans.”

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