The free spirit for which the Dutch are often celebrated was under virulent attack ahead of this week’s elections, the first test in 2017 of the strength of the populist insurgency sweeping across Europe and threatening the future of the EU.
The outcome, in which the maverick extremist Geert Wilders fell far short of expectations, is cause therefore for celebration. The Dutch have halted, for now, the populists’ momentum in the west, which began last year with Britain’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election.
Like other far-right politicians, Mr Wilders fused anti-immigrant sentiment with Euroscepticism and hostility to globalisation. He made little effort to sanitise his message. His explicitly racist abuse of Holland’s Moroccan diaspora, his positions on halting the construction of mosques and barring Muslim immigrants altogether were extreme even by the standards of his fellow populists.