Efforts by Dutch anti-immigration campaigner Geert Wilders and France’s Marine le Pen to form a formal group within the European parliament appear to have failed, so far at least.

So far the PVV and the Front National, which emerged as the biggest party in France after the weekend’s European parliamentary elections, have only found three other parties to join forces with.

Extra financial support and speaking time is available for groups made up of at least 27 MEPs from seven different parties.

As expected, Austria’s FPO, Italy’s Lega Nord and the far-right Belgian party Vlaams Belang have joined the Wilders and Le Pen-led alliance.

UKip

However, the Sweden Democrats have said they would rather work with Britain’s UKip party and the Slovakian SNS party failed to win any seats in the European parliament.

UKip leader Nigel Farage has always made it clear he will not work with Wilders or what he calls the anti-semitic Front National. The Danish People’s Party will not work with Le Pen either, nor will the German Eurosceptic group Alternative fur Deutschland.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Le Pen and Wilders said they were sure they would find two more parties to join their alliance.

‘We are convinced we are writing history here,’ Wilders said, but declined to say which other parties he was talking to. Support for the PVV fell from 17% to 13.2% in the Dutch European elections.

More on this