Bos rules out Labour cabinet with Wilders

The Labour party (PvdA) will ‘never’ take part in a cabinet with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party PVV, party leader Wouter Bos told the Labour congress in Apeldoorn on Saturday.


‘Wilders’ Netherlands is not our Netherlands,’ Bos said in a speech to party members, which received a long ovation from his audience, the NRC reports.
Bos said the refusal to form a government with Wilders is nothing to do with ‘exclusion, demonisation or cordons sanitaires, or with Wilders as a person or with trying to make his voters feel small’. The PvdA wants to offer voters clarity, Bos said.
Pointing to the party’s campaign poster featuring a small blonde boy looking at a large mass of people, Bos said: ‘The Netherlands we want him to grow up in is not the Netherlands which Wilders is working towards.’
Bos had said earlier it was ‘inconceivable’ that Labour would form a government with the PVV. The nature of the Dutch political system means governments are always made up of at least two parties.
Labour has also come under fire for failing to tackle the rise in anti-Islam sentiment generated by Wilders.
The party is struggling in the opinion polls and would see its support halved if there was a general election now. The PVV, by contrast, is challenging the Christian Democrats to become the biggest party in the 150 seat parliament.
Several prominent MPs have publically criticised the party leadership and direction.

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