An MP for the Dutch free-market Liberal party VVD has said that the time is right to potentially link up with Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV in a new cabinet. 

Ruben Brekelmans said in an interview with EW magazine that the party still has “fundamental” objections to Wilders and his political style and policies, but that this did not necessarily prohibit an alliance on asylum policy. 

“If you want to enact tough policies, you can’t keep on making compromise deals with the left,” Brekelmans, who is the party’s parliamentary spokesman on immigration, told the magazine. “Then it might be necessary to work out solutions with Geert Wilders.”

Prime minister Mark Rutte has consistently ruled out any alliance with Wilders, citing his anti-Moroccan speech in 2014, and his wish to close all mosques and ban the Koran, among other policies.

Brekelmans, considered a rising star within the VVD despite only being an MP for two years, told EW he would prefer a minority cabinet kept in power by the PVV, or a separate agreement with the anti-Islam group purely on asylum rather an an outright coalition.

The current cabinet collapsed earlier this month after efforts to reach agreement on cutting the number of refugee family members coming to the Netherlands failed. 

Commentators say the fact that Rutte is stepping back may now clear the way for change, particularly given the VVD’s tough stance on refugees. Dilan Yeşilgöz, who seems poised to take over from Rutte, is a known hardliner, despite being a refugee herself. 

Brekelmans told EW he would like to see the number of refugees coming to the Netherlands reduced by 50,000 in the coming year. Last year the total was 46,000 including some 11,000 close family members and this year’s total is likely to be similar.

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Wilders said in a reaction to the interview that it would be “very sensible” to let the one million PVV voters join in. “Without us, no tough approach to the enormous asylum problem would be possible,” he said. “But we would want to be in the cabinet, of course.” 

Wilders did have a role in supporting the minority VVD CDA cabinet from 2010 to 2012 but that collapsed after the PVV refused to back the government’s cost-cutting plans.