Forum voor Democratie, fighting its first provincial and senate elections this year, does back Dutch withdrawal from the European Union, party founder Thierry Baudet has confirmed.

Henk Otten, who is leading the party’s campaign for seats in the senate, told the first televised debate of the campaign last  Sunday that the party is ‘not after a Nexit for the sake of it’.

‘I am ideologically opposed to the EU, the internal market, open borders, the whole thing,’ Baudet is quoted as saying by the Volkskrant. ‘That is in our election manifesto and has been our position for years.’

During Sunday’s debate Otten, who was involved in the foundation of the party, said: ‘Let us keep the internal market. What we want is to go back to the EEG in which we work together on economic grounds. We want to show a more assertive policy towards Brussels.’

Baudet, by contrast, says that to drive trade the Netherlands ‘should not be in a customs union with rules for harmonisation’.

‘If you want to earn money, you should trade with India,’ he told the Volkskrant. ‘That will really do something. That is what I think and have thought about for years, and written more than one book about it.’

Polls

According to the most recent poll about Dutch attitudes to the EU, carried out among just over 1,000 voters in September last year, 55% of the Dutch back membership of the EU and 21% want to leave.

Forum voor Democratie and the anti-Islam PVV, which also backs a Nexit, have combined support of between 20% and 25% in the latest poll of polls.