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Far-right Geert Wilders looks like next Dutch PM
Wilders will show his Islamophobic film to the House of Lords today after winning local elections in the Netherlands
Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders will arrive in London to visit the House of Lords today, firmly believing he can be the Netherlands' next prime minister following key victories in local elections.
Wilders has been invited to the Lords to attend a screening of his short film, Fitna, an Islamophobic documentary in which verses of the Koran are quoted against the backdrop of aeroplanes flying into the World Trade Center in 2001.
His brand of populism - he is anti-immigration, anti-EU and proposes lower taxes - swept him to first place in local elections yesterday in Almere, a town where a third of the inhabitants are of immigrant origin, and second place in The Hague.
If repeated across the country in the general election due in three months, the result would give Wilders 27 seats in the 150-seat Dutch parliament, making his Freedom Party the largest and giving him a very good chance of becoming prime minister of a coalition government.
"We are going to conquer the entire country," Wilders said in a victory speech. "The leftist elite still believes in multiculturalism, coddling criminals, a European superstate and high taxes. But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice."
Muslims turned up to vote wearing headscarves in protest at Wilders's proposed ban on the garment. One woman told AFP: "I don't wear a headscarf normally, but I have decided to start doing so now out of protest.”
Demonstrations are expected later today in London when Wilders turns up to the House of Lords, after taking up an invitation from Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the UK Independence Party leader. It is the second time he has been invited: last year he was turned back at Heathrow after being banned from the UK for being a threat to community relations.
The publicity from the ban, which has since been overturned by the courts, afforded him a surge in opinion polls in the Netherlands, as has an attempt by Dutch authorities to prosecute him for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.
Some now think the only thing that will check the Freedom Party’s surge in popularity is a period in government. They would have to form a coalition with more moderate parties, which would blunt Wilders's more extreme policies and at the same time eat away at his image as a political outsider. ·
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This will spread through the EU as the dangers of allowing large numbers of muslim from an alien culture to pollute wetern society become more apparent?
Mass deportations back to countries of origin?
@ eric legere - well put.
Looks like the pendulum is starting to swing the otherway
There seems to be a large number of fascist leaning readers with opinions on this article. I hope that this reflects the feelings of those who follow this particular subject rather than the mass of readers of this journal.
@ James Sinclair. If I cite a sentence from a paragraph which, by itself has exactly the opposite meaning of the paragraph, that is a lie. If I do this with scripture, that is incitement of hatred or, in this case, Islamophobia. This is what Mr. Wilders film is all about. I can't speak about the imams and their lectures because I haven't heard the entire lectures, but I can tell you that the sermons I listen to every Friday are absolutely clear, Allah does not condone violence against non-combatants, women or children. I am against terrorism, whether it is committed by some shadowy,obscure group or a government which claims to be doing it to promote democracy, communism, socialism or any thing else. Every religion has people who will try to twist scripture, even the religion of atheism
We need him i Britain ASAP
Our "Freedom Party" in the UK will achieve a similar win in the coming General Election.
Nobody has trust in LibLabCons any more.
All we need is for Broon to call it,Come on Gordon,do it now !
Can't we learn from this? In the interests of personal freedom we must prohibit the indoctrination of children and the subjugation of women. This does not impinge on the freedoms of adults, in the long run. Indoctrination is practised by all religions; in Islam the indocrination seems more forceful than in other religions. If banning headscarves can help eliminate the indoctrination, the short term loss of freedom will be worth it. We must not let Islam become a (more) significant influence in the UK. Other religions seem to have adapted to a free society, or at least to accept they must behave as if they have. Islam must be made to do that as well.
Geert Wilders is not islamophobic, the quotes from the Koran in 'Fitna' are real. He is showing true face of Islam by simply repeating what the Koran says and I have read the Koran.
I wish this country could elect him as our next Prime Minister!
god that man has a face you just want to kick doesn't he
Excuse me. How is citing exact verses from the Qu'ran and showing Imams preaching Islamophobic? He doesn't claim anything himself, instead lets the people who follow Islam speak for themselves in Fitna.
Strange reasoning from the PC gang.
The far right in Holland is nowhere near as strong as this article suggests. The Freedom Party only stood in those two cities - nationally, it managed (a still worrying, but very small) 1% of the vote. At the same time, the Greens and D66 democrats have done very well, and 28% of votes went to independent candidates. Wilders is all kinds of nasty - but there's plenty of optimism from these Dutch elections! See also: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-local-elections-results
Geert Wilders thinks that "The leftist elite still believes in multiculturalism, coddling criminals, a European superstate and high taxes. But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice." And he is right! But he is a bit too nice. Perhaps he should add that the leftist elite don't believe in democracy, and are fundamentally anti-Western self-loathers. Socialism is not impractical, it is wrong. When free trade and small government work, as in the British Empire of old and in the Swiss cantons of today, they hate it because they see their philosophy of 'All are equal, except some are more equal than others' being disproved before their eyes. There are no human rights, there are only rights and wrongs.