Dutch Television interviewed Geert Wilders, leader of the  Freedom Party (PVV),  in the Hague Parliament on the 10th anniversary of its founding.  Wilders had been voted the top politician of the year in 2015. The PVV’s towering standings in Dutch political polls vaulted it over the ruling VVD-led  coalition of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The irony is that Wilders left the VVD with predictions that he would never make junior minister. Ten years hence, both he and the PVV appears as serious contenders in the 2017 general parliamentary election.

The interview comes at a time when the events of the past year confirm Wilders’ and the PVV’s concerns over the flooding of Europe and the Netherlands with Muslim migrants from the hot spots in the Ummah seeking asylum. This has resulted in an enormous economic and social burden on the Netherlands.

Wilders noted the enormous progress the PVV has made in a decade in this press statement:

Ten years ago today, the Party for Freedom (PVV) was officially registered. We began in an attic room with a few people. Today, we are by far the largest party in the Dutch polls. We have more than one hundred representatives in the Senate, the House, the European Parliament, the provincial and the municipal councils. Together with all our collaborators, volunteers and voters, we are the PVV: the pride of the Netherlands.

People are sick and tired of all the lies. They want less Islam, to stop mass immigration, better care, direct democracy, and lower taxes.

No other party is loved so much by the people as our party. We are hated, however, by the elite and the enemies of freedom. I am on the death list of Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, and other terror organizations. I live under 24/7 police protection. But the PVV will not be intimidated.

We defend freedom of speech like no-one else. Islam will never be able to silence us! Who showed Muhammad cartoons on Dutch national television? The PVV!

The PVV is a party of patriots. We believe in our nation. We believe in national policies. That makes us unique. We are the voice of millions of Dutch who will otherwise not be heard. We are the only party that does not beat around the bush and dares to say it like it is.

A bigger PVV means more sovereignty, less Europe, being masters again of our own country and our own money. A larger PVV means a stronger Netherlands. A better Netherlands.

Evidence of what Wilders spoke of in the  Dutch Television interview  is reflected in Dutch protests at migrant reception centers and concerns over predatory behavior by Muslim men towards women in the EU, notably Germany, Sweden  and the Netherlands.  We wrote of his protest rally on January 22, 2016 in the Dutch community of Spijkenisse handing out cans of pepper spray. That was a send up on the Muslim male migrant misogyny in Cologne Germany and other German and European cities by what he calls: “Islamic testosterone bombs.” Wilders is concerned about assertion of Dutch national sovereignty and foundational Western Judeo-Christian values for current and future generations of Dutch children and grandchildren.

The broad ranging interview on February 20th, occurred  less than a month before a scheduled trial to begin on March 18, 2016 brought by Hague public prosecutors. The trial is occurring because of alleged violation of Dutch race hatred laws given Wilders comments at a PVV election campaign rally on March 12th and 19th, 2015. His remarks suggested  that the country needed : “fewer Moroccans,” a reference to  absorption problems and disproportionate representation in Dutch prisons for criminal convictions.

Watch the Vladtepesblog YouTube video  of the Dutch Television interview with Wilders with English translation subtitles:

The topics covered in the Dutch Television interview with Wilders focused on his leaving the VVD party, his clarion call against Islamization of the Netherlands and objections to political Islam. He expressed the need to preserve sovereign control over the country’s borders, the channeling of funding from absorption of Muslim migrants to Dutch senior pensions and health benefits. He also expressed  an  objection to the overarching control exerted by the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. That is an implied reference to Wilders’ espousal of a NExit plan launched in 2014 to leave the EU. A UK referendum on the issue, negotiated in Brussels with the European Commission by British PM David Cameron, is scheduled for a June 23, 2016 vote.  We note the recent call by Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson for a BRExit.

The issue of whether a future  PVV-led Dutch government is possible came up in the Wilders interview. That reflects Wilders’ and the PVV’s significant standing in weekly political polls taken in the Netherlands. The line of questioning focused on whether Wilders’ could compromise to form a ruling coalition in the Hague parliament if given the nod by King Willem-Alexander in a 2017 general election. Wilders made it plain that the fewer parties in a PVV-led coalition the easier it would be to form a coalition and achieve the party’s objectives.  Asked, when the PVV would cease as a party given the alleged single issue of ending Mass Muslim immigration, Wilders indicated, perhaps it would take more than a generation. 35 years or so achieve the objective of preserving Dutch liberty and freedom for future generations of its citizens. Towards the end of the Dutch Television interview he noted, “Perhaps it is possible that next  year we will sit here again talking to the Prime Minister.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.