The far-right's friendly face

The far-right Dutch Party of Freedom (PVV) led by Geerd Wilders is one of a number of unsavoury organisations which has grown in recent years to pollute the parliamentary politics of many European countries.

But the PVV is different in some respects from such parties as Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in neighbouring Flanders, the Dutch-speaking area of Belgium, whose origins can readily be traced to Flemish nazism.

Vlaams Belang used to be Vlaams Blok until it was banned for being racist and thus contrary to the Belgian constitution.

Vlaams Blok simply changed its name and has been a bit more careful, avoiding further prosecution - but it has scarcely changed its spots.

The PVV has also refused overtures from France's Front National, whose former leader has been in trouble for saying that the German wartime occupation really wasn't all that brutal.

That did not go down well, especially with the descendants of the thousands of members of the resistance shot by the nazis or the many more French people deported to work under slave conditions in Germany.

Similar approaches from elsewhere have been rejected.

The thugs of the British National Party and their ilk are not welcome in PVV circles and while we may have our own views of the likely effects of Wilders's rhetoric, he goes out of his way to condemn violence.

Wilders's expressed opinions are an odd mix. He defends gay rights and, on occasion, women's rights.

He presents himself as a champion of the Dutch constitution, yet denies Muslims the protection of its guarantees of equality.

He uses issues such as homophobia and misogyny to attack Islam, which he accuses of both. He is also opportunistic.

As the Dutch people have become increasingly sickened by attacks on their welfare state in the name of "austerity," he has presented himself as its defender, despite a past as an enthusiastic neoliberal.

He also makes much of his opposition to the EU, another popular stance in the Netherlands where the radical left EU-critical Socialist Party has recently eclipsed the two centre-left parties - both of them Europhile - in the polls.

The latest controversy Wilders and his PVV have stirred up concerns the establishment of a complaints line and website where decent blonde-haired, blue-eyed Dutch citizens can complain about immigrants.

However the focus this time isn't on Muslims at all but on migrant workers from Poland and other central and eastern Europeans countries.

The language used is extremely offensive.

Migrant workers from the east are alleged to be a source of "pollution" and "nuisance."

There are some real problems involved in the Netherlands' forced attempt to absorb a sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of workers from Poland and its neighbours, but the cause of these problems is not the workers themselves.

It is rather the neoliberal policies of the European Union and the Dutch government.

Despite the very different political system which operates in the Netherlands the Thatcherite politics of the centre-right and the absolute abandonment of the interests of working men and women by the centre-left tell a familiar story.

The weakening of regulatory laws has allowed the establishment of abusive temping agencies which specialise in exploiting central and eastern European migrant labour attracted by higher wages than they can earn back home.

The problem is that the wages they are offered, though high by Polish standards, are in many cases well below the negotiated going rate for the job in question.

In the Netherlands collective labour agreements (CAOs in the Dutch acronym) are hammered out regularly by tripartite bodies involving unions, employers and government.

This system of mediated class interests is anathema to the market fundamentalists.

For them labour is just another commodity, like soap powder or toothpaste.

Workers must compete with each other and whoever will do a job for the lowest return should have it. This is why the EU's internal borders were removed.

The aim is to reduce wages to the lowest possible levels and in this way to enhance profits.

Migrant workers are thus hired on wage rates and under conditions which are far worse than those contained in the CAOs.

Of course there will always be employers who try to dodge such minimum standards.

In this case, however, the European Court of Justice, the EU's enforcer, has declared this undercutting to be legal.

Workers are brought in on short contracts or no contracts and they know that if they make trouble they can simply be fired. The results are easily exploited by the far-right.

It is not enough however to address the problem through multiculturalism and appeals to our common humanity.

The European Parliament's condemnation of Wilders's racist website rings hollow when you understand the way in which the neoliberal policies which it promotes are fuelling support for the far-right.

Touching humanitarian rhetoric will not be effective if worker is set against worker through the cynical manipulations of the European neoliberal project.

The demand must be the defence of working conditions and wages for everyone.

As the leader of the Dutch Socialist Party Emile Roemer wrote in a recent attack on the PVV's racist "helpline," "Whoever wants to come to the Netherlands to work is heartily welcome, but this must be under the conditions which we have agreed amongst ourselves here.

"The fact that the labour market is being disrupted is not the fault of eastern European workers but of politicians in The Hague and in Brussels. Making a single labour market from unequal economies creates an underclass of people who work without legal protection and are underpaid."

The free movement of persons has become a tool to further exploitation and a downward spiral of wages and working conditions.

The answer is not to exclude those who take advantage of this "freedom" in order to escape poverty but to work hard to organise across divisions of culture and language to fight back.

As someone once said: "Workers of all countries, unite!"