According to the media, there was only one story about the Dutch election: the rise of the far right and in particular the hype around Geert Wilders, who was portrayed as Europe’s answer to Donald Trump. But the election has revealed another, if less sensational story: the increase in support for the GreenLeft party, GroenLinks, under its charismatic leader, Jesse Klaver.

European Greens have had good reason to feel jubilant of late. First came the spectacular election of the world’s first green head of state in Austria last autumn, and now a fourfold increase in the Green vote in the Netherlands. Of course such jubilation should be tempered slightly, as the wide choice of rightwing parties on offer either held or increased their vote. It was also a bad night for the social democrats, who ended up with just nine seats – a loss of 29 and five behind the Greens. Their vote quite simply evaporated. But equally, Geert Wilders’ Freedom party received less support than in 2010.

The decline and collapse of social democrat and centre-left parties throughout Europe is another story that has been submerged beneath the narrative of the rise of nationalism and the far right. Yet it is an integral part of that story. By abandoning the idea of solidarity with working people across the world and embracing neoliberal ideology, socialist parties have given fresh impetus to a nationalism that we had hoped was dead and buried after two world wars.

The Netherlands has a thriving political pluralism, which is often an argument used against reforming ​our own ​system

Which brings us to Jesse Klaver, the charismatic leader of GroenLinks who must take due credit for the huge increase in support for his party; among followers and devotees he is jokingly referred to as the new Jessiah. With his good looks, informal manner and mixed heritage ancestry, he has been compared to both Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama. But he is much more than a pretty face. He has honed a message of hope fighting fear. He is pro-refugee, pro-European, and believes that rightwing populism can be stopped in its tracks by standing up for the principles of tolerance and compassion.

So could Britain’s Greens experience the same surge as GroenLinks in the Netherlands? Once again, in Britain see our path blocked by our outdated and dysfunctional first-past-the-post electoral system. Like most European countries, the Netherlands has a proportional system where seats match the votes cast for each party. The Dutch elections demonstrate clearly that such a system increases turnout – over 80%, which is the sort of figure we can only dream of in the UK. It is also the case that such a system encourages and rewards smaller parties such as the Greens.

The Netherlands plays host to a thriving political pluralism, which is often an argument used against reforming Britain’s electoral system. With opportunities for so many smaller parties to gain a foothold, PR would allow extremist elements into power and/or result in a weak government, so the arguments go. Yet the results in the Netherlands dispel these myths. Greens in the Netherlands have provided a counterbalance to the extreme right and the inevitable coalition government that will follow will prevent Geert Wilders and his bunch of racists entering power because other parties have refused to work with them.

With electoral reform – something I have campaigned for my entire political life – I have no doubt that the UK could also have at least as many Green MPs as the 14 elected in the Netherlands.

But even without PR, do the Dutch elections offer hope and prospects for Greens in the UK?

In Amsterdam, Klaver’s party topped the poll with almost 20% of the vote. This is a city with many similarities to Bristol, where I have my constituency office. Both are port cities, with the inevitable mixing of cultures that implies. Both are youthful and have a green counter-culture. Bristol is also proudly European, with almost 80% of residents from the Bristol West constituency voting to remain in the EU. Bristol is exactly the sort of place where Greens hope to be able to nudge closer to the 14 seats won in the Netherlands by GroenLinks, with or without PR. By standing as Bristol West Green party candidate in the next general election, I hope to build further on the 27% achieved by the Greens in 2015.

The political landscape is going through a period of seismic change. Broadly speaking, it is young people who embrace the reality of the global village and recognise their place as citizens of a world they share and need to protect. As climate change and other trans-border issues dominate the politics of the 21st century, we may see more elections where the far-right populists and Greens are vying for the votes of those jaded with the right and left choice of the last century.