Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders in Vienna, Austria, March 27, 2015. Wilders’ party is surging in the polls.
HEINZ-PETER BADER/REUTERS

BY JOSH LOWE,

A controversial anti-Islam party is surging in the polls in Holland, registering its highest score ever in survey data released Sunday.

The Freedom Party (PVV), led by right-winger Geert Wilders, who has denounced Islam as a “fascist” ideology, took 42 seats in a poll of voting intention conducted by Peil.nl. This represents a week-on-week increase of one seat and is 27 seats more than the party won in the country’s 2012 general election.

Holland’s governing People’s Party-Labour Party (VVD-PvdA) coalition scored 27 seats in the poll, compared to the 79 they took in the last election. The next election will be held in spring 2017, at the latest.

While the research cautions that this success will not necessarily be replicated in an actual election, the PVV has enjoyed consistently strong leads in a range of recent polls.

Wilders has capitalized on a rise in anti-immigrant feeling across Europe stoked by sex attacks allegedly committed in part by migrants and refugees on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany. In January, Wilders held a rally in the Dutch town of Spijkenisse where he handed out fake pepper spray to women while warning of an influx of what he called “Islamic testosterone bombs.”

The far-right populist has been a household name in the Netherlands since 2004, when he split from VVD to carve out his own anti-Islam platform. His book, Marked for Death, Islam’s War On The West And Me, was published in 2012.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the center-right VVD prime minister Mark Rutte said that Europe has just six-to- eight weeks to find better ways of coping with the current influx of migrants if it is to avert serious political damage.

Source: http://europe.newsweek.com/geert-wilders-poll-anti-islam-419080

n this April 24, 2012 file photo Freedom Party lawmaker Geert Wilders addresses parliament in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo: AP)

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, the most popular politician in the Netherlands, has told Turks “you are not welcome here” in a video that takes aim at Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Union.

Wilders, who is fiercely anti-Islam, has surged in public opinion polls with his call for the closing of national borders in the face of a migrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Muslims, fleeing to Europe this year to escape conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and beyond.

Turkey blackmail EU at summit in Brussels last Sunday to help stem the flow of migrants in return for cash, an easing of visa restrictions for Turks visiting Europe and renewed talks on admitting Turkey as a member of the bloc.

In his English-language video posted online on Friday with Turkish subtitles, however, Wilders told Turks in typically blunt fashion: “Your government is fooling you into believing that one day you will become a member of the European Union. Well, forget it.”

“You are no Europeans and you will never be. An Islamic state like Turkey does not belong to Europe,” he said. “We do not want more but less Islam. So Turkey, stay away from us. You are not welcome here.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte swiftly condemned the video.

Recent opinion polls indicate Wilders would win the most seats in the Dutch parliament if there were an election today. His Party for Freedom would gain more seats than the two ruling coalition government parties combined, the polls show.

After decades of relatively liberal immigration policy that let in large numbers of migrants from Turkey and Morocco, the Netherlands, a founder member of the EU, has become much less accommodating.

The country of 17 million people, which is a member of the EU’s open-border Schengen area, now implements some of the toughest immigration policies in the 28-nation EU.

Turkey has been negotiating to join the EU for a decade but talks had largely stalled until Sunday’s deal due to disagreements over Cyprus and concerns over Ankara’s record on human rights and freedom of expression.

DUTCH ANTI-ISLAM POLITICIAN GEERT WILDERS SURGES IN POLLS

Dutch far-right leader Wilders tells Turks: You will never join EU

Turkey blackmail EU at summit in Brussels last Sunday to help stem the flow of migrants in return for cash, an easing of visa restrictions for Turks visiting Europe and renewed talks on admitting Turkey as a member of the bloc.

In his English-language video posted online on Friday with Turkish subtitles, however, Wilders told Turks in typically blunt fashion: “Your government is fooling you into believing that one day you will become a member of the European Union. Well, forget it.”

“You are no Europeans and you will never be. An Islamic state like Turkey does not belong to Europe,” he said. “We do not want more but less Islam. So Turkey, stay away from us. You are not welcome here.”