The Dutch far right and anti-EU leader Geert Wilders was in Brussels on Tuesday, campaigning for the EU election outside the European parliament.

In front of reporters, Wilders cut out a symbolic Dutch star from an EU flag to symbolise his wish to remove the Netherlands from the EU.

“We don’t want Brussels, we don’t want the EU” he said, “and I will take this star back to the Netherlands in order to give it back to the Dutch people, in order to show that we don’t need this European flag and that we are proud of our own Dutch flag”.

Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) is leading the polls in the Netherlands.

In the new European Parliament he wants to team up with other eurosceptic parties such as Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France to form a common group and in their words “to wreck the EU from within”.

Euronews correspondent in Brussels Olaf Bruns says that although Wilders’ party is high up in the Dutch polls, the eurosceptics won’t get a Europe-wide majority. However, even without gaining power, one thing they are sure to obtain is more influence.