Prime minister and VVD leader Mark Rutte said on Thursday night his party will not work with anti-immigration campaigner Geert Wilders in any form so long as he does not retract recent anti-Moroccan comments.

Wilders crossed a new boundary when he led his supporters in chanting they wanted fewer Moroccans in the country, Rutte said on the fringes of a European summit in Brussels. ‘As long as this is the opinion of the PVV, we will not work with this party,’ Rutte said.

This is the first time Rutte has publicly distanced himself from the PVV.

On Thursday evening, PVV parliamentarian Roland van Vliet left the party, saying he no longer felt at home there.

The PVV is the biggest party in Almere after the local elections, even though its support went down slightly. However, this means it will be impossible for the party to form a coalition.