Former BBB MP Mona Keijzer has resigned from party, ending hopes of a reconciliation with the current leadership after a month-long stand-off.

Keijzer, 57, has sat as an independent in parliament after she was passed over to take over as leader from Caroline van der Plas after the general election in favour of party founder Henk Vermeer.

A group of 120 leading party members, including senators and provincial assembly members, signed a letter to the leadership urging them to hold talks with Keijzer, but the MP shut the door on any hopes of a comeback at a hastily arranged members’ meeting on Friday.

“I have given my all to shape efforts to make the party broader and more professional, but it’s not something you can do alone,” she told the 450 delegates.

BBB senator Robert van Gasteren also quit the party at the meeting, saying he would continue as an independent member of the upper house. The party is still the second largest group in the 745-seat chamber with 12 senators.

Van Gasteren attacked the leadership as unprofessional and lacking direction as he announced his resignation, claiming that Van der Plas, Vermeer and the third MP, former agriculture minister Femke Wiersma, had ignored the wishes of the party’s rank and file members.

“In a grown-up party and club where the members have the final say, nobody is bigger than the party,” he said. “But in line with Animal Farm, it seems things are different in the BBB: some pigs are more equal than others”.

Keijzer played a prominent role in the BBB’s election campaign in November, seeking to broaden the party’s appeal to voters on the right with a manifesto promising to curtain the impact of “Islamic extremism”.

Talks with Markuszower

After the election, where the party was reduced from seven seats to four, the BBB said it wanted to go back to focusing on rural issues under Vermeer, who set up the party in 2019 with Van der Plas.

Vermeer claimed after Keijzer quit as an MP in February that she had repeatedly threatened to leave and held private talks with Gidi Markuszower, leader of a group of seven MPs who broke away from the far-right PVV in January. “It doesn’t inspire confidence in her as someone who can lead the party,” Vermeer said.

The BBB won 38 seats on 19 councils in this month’s local elections, but latest opinion polls suggest the party would be reduced to one seat in parliament if a general election were to be held today.