The leader of the D66 Liberal democrats has called for continued debate with Geert Wilders and the PVV, despite his recent anti-Moroccan statements.

‘If you ignore him…. You are ignoring his voters. And it is them, many of whom are active in the community, that I want to debate with,’ Pechtold said in a column in Tuesday’s Volkskrant.

Pechtold said he would do this ‘not by lowering myself to Wilders’ level of language, but by continuing to exchange arguments’.

The ruling Labour party (PvdA) has said it will no longer support any motions in parliament drawn up by the PVV because of the anti-Moroccan chants led by Wilders in the wake of last week’s local elections.

Europe

Meanwhile, it emerged on Monday night that the PVV will have a new line-up in the European parliament following the decision by three of the four current MEPs to stand down.

The PVV’s leader in Brussels, Laurence Stassens, has already left the party following the anti-Moroccan chants.

Her successor Lucas Hartong has said he will not be up for election in May and a third member of the team said earlier she would not run for election again.

The new leader of the PVV European campaign is Marcel de Graaff, who currently leads the party in the senate. It is not clear if he will combine the two roles.

Four of the top five candidates are new faces. The only remaining PVV MEP – Auke Zijlstra – is fifth and likely to lose her seat given the party’s current performance in the polls.

Wilders is hoping to form a European parliamentary group with other anti-immigration parties, including France’s Front Nationale and the Belgian right-wingers Vlaams Belang after the vote on May 22.

Almere

Meanwhile, in Almere, where the PVV lost support in the local elections but remains the biggest party, the nine local councillors have decided to remain together and not leave the party after all.

Eight of the nine Almere councillors were among the first to go public and distance themselves from the election night chanting, but that now appears to have been a ‘misunderstanding’, news agency ANP reports.

‘The left-wing media and politically correct clique have not been able to break us up,’ local party leader Roon van Dijk said.

Two MPs and a string of provincial councillors have left the PVV since the chanting. Wilders on Saturday refused to apologise for his actions and said he was not sorry for telling the truth.