Dutch elections

EU MELTDOWN? Anti-EU party's victory in Dutch elections sends SHOCKWAVES to Brussels elite

A populist eurosceptic party has stunned the political establishment in the Netherlands and sent shockwaves across the European Union after a stunning election victory. The Forum for Democracy (FvD), which campaigns for a Dutch exit from the EU, won the most votes in elections for the upper house of parliament earlier this week. This has plunged the country and EU leadership into crisis, just as Brussels struggles with more deadlock over Brexit.

The party is on course to win 12 seats in the upper house which will place the FvD as the largest party in the senate along with VVD, the party of the prime minister, Mark Rutte.

Thierry Baudet, who leads the FvD, which was only launched three years ago, told supporters: “We stand here in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilisation.

“We won because the country needs us. We are being destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us.

“Successive Rutte governments have left our borders wide open, letting in hundreds of thousands of people with cultures completely different to ours.