The leader of a local branch of the PvdA has been summoned to appear before party bosses after sending out a tweet in which he wished Geert Wilders would die of a heart attack.

Willem den Hertog, who heads Labour in the seaside resort of Katwijk, was responding to Wilders’ own tweet in which the anti-Islam campaigner said that if he were shot, the Labour party would be to blame.

In the tweet, Den Hertog said: ‘Of course we all hope Wilders dies in bed of a heart attack’ (if not between the legs of a left-wing fellow MP)’.

Democracy

In a follow-up message, Den Hertog said: ‘But if a bullet is involved then let it be engraved with “thanks from the grateful Dutch people” on the side.’

Labour chairman Hans Spekman, who started the entire row by saying Wilders was a danger to democracy in an interview in the Volkskrant, said Den Hertog’s tweets were disgusting.

‘They are misplaced and wrong,’ he said. ‘We distance ourselves from this. We debate on the basis of content.’

Den Hertog, a lawyer by profession, said in a reaction on Thursday afternoon that he should not have sent the tweets. ‘Given the reactions, I should not have sent them,’ he said.