The big win for the far-right PVV at last month’s general election was down to the concept of “own people first” not worrying about making ends meet or the housing shortage, according to the Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek, which aims to find out why people voted as they did.

In total, a representative group of 6,000 people and an additional group of 1,000 people with foreign roots were questioned about their voting choices before and after the election. Of them, around 1,000 had voted PVV.

The researchers found that the PVV voters rarely mentioned money worries as an issue and housing was only included when linked to immigration, the Volkskrant reported.  But migration and refugees were “very clearly” the most common motives, researchers told the paper.

Voters commented that the PVV will ensure “the Netherlands is for the Dutch again” and that the party “dares to speak the truth”. The PVV was also seen as a party that could drive change and as a protest vote against the established order. This, the researchers said, applied to both traditional and new PVV voters.

The wider research also showed that around one-third of Dutch voters want restrictions on immigration and have a lack of faith in politics, indicating the PVV could become even bigger, the researchers said.

The PVV won 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament in November, but a poll earlier this week indicated that could grow to 47 and 30% of the vote if there was another election now.

• Votes piled up for the PVV as migration became the focus

Of the 1,000 voters with foreign roots, 120 identified as Muslim and just two of them voted PVV, further evidence that claims many Muslims voted for the far-right party are wrong.

However, some 23.5% of people with roots in Asia, South America and Suriname did vote PVV, roughly in line with the rest of the population.