PVV leader Geert Wilders will not take a seat in the European parliament in Brussels now his party and the Front National have failed to put together a formal alliance of seven parties.

Wilders, who took ceremonial last place on the PVV’s list of candidates for the European parliament, was elected on preference votes.

He had hoped to take a seat in both Brussels and The Hague but this is impossible under European and Dutch election law.

Unwilling

Wilders’ decision means Hans Jansen, the anti-Islam academic who was fourth on the PVV’s candidates list, will now go to Brussels.

He told the Volkskrant earlier this month he is in no hurry to make the move.

‘I’m busy with other things. I’ve retired, I get royalties and I am writing a book,’ the paper quoted him as saying. ‘I thought it was fun to vote for myself for once, but my happiness does not depend on that seat.’

Earlier on Tuesday it emerged that the PVV’s hope of establishing a seven-party alliance in Brussels together with France’s Front National had flopped.