Imagine a political party like the British National Party - but far more successful.

A party founded by one man, led by the same man and with policies founded on his beliefs. Many of these policies are anti-immigration, especially non-European immigration, and the founder calls Islam and the presence of Muslim people in his country "a gigantic problem" ,whilst endorsing a ban on the Quran. Like the BNP, it has often been accused of being racist.

Described as a right-wing populist party due to the many elements on the party's agenda that are simple and hard to disagree with, the party calls for better education, lower taxes, better healthcare and less bureaucracy. In just five years, it has gone from non-existent to being a party of significant power, affecting political decisions as the third largest party in the country. Yet this is not the story of a hypothetical party; it is in fact the story of the PVV (Party For Freedom) and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

Why is the PVV is so much more successful than the BNP? It is a combination of several complex factors, but there are some obvious starting points.

Electoral System: The Netherlands uses proportional representation, meaning people are less likely to vote "strategically" because they believe their party of choice has no chance of winning seats; the percentage of votes a party gets is the percentage of seats in parliament. While the BNP has been growing steadily over time, it has never managed to secure a seat in parliament (and currently holds fewer seats in the European Parliament than the PVV).

Pluralistic Parties: The large number of serious parties in the Netherlands leads to greater instability at election time: politics can and does change rapidly. UK voters, by contrast, seem to shy away from large changes, evidenced by the recent Alternative Voting referendum.

Minority Power: For the first time in many years, the Netherlands is being run by a minority cabinet, so as the third largest party the PVV is currently critical to the stability of the government, which needs the support of the PVV to achieve a majority vote in parliament. This position is, in a way, ideal; they can criticise both the cabinet and the opposition and can exert considerable power, something the BNP has never been able to do.

Leadership: Wilders is the founder and authoritarian leader of the party; all MPs are "handpicked" by him and there is no party membership or outside input (another issue for which the PVV has received criticism): he is a strong leader who seemingly decides on all policies. This is very different to the BNP, which has a more usual party hierarchy; Nick Griffin as party leader does not control the party in the same way as Wilders.

Geography: Wilders is from a region of the Netherlands which traditionally feels left behind economically and in terms of infrastructure; many people in this area can relate to him more than other politicians and admire his success. They are willing to vote for him after hearing about the downsides of immigration in large cities; the highest percentage of Wilders voters in the last general election was in an extremely rural municipality, hardly an urban area suffering the problems generally attributed to mass immigration. Wilders manages to play into these people's xenophobia.

Perhaps because the focus is not entirely on race, religion and immigration issues, and because the PVV does not have the history of the BNP and has had less time to build up a reputation of racism and xenophobia, it is more accessible and seen as more "acceptable" than the BNP; BNP voters are generally automatically labelled as racist, and whilst there is still an element of this with PVV voters there is the possibility they agreed with other policies. Finally, and most worryingly for Dutch people who do not agree with Wilders; perhaps if the British population were more like the Dutch population, the BNP would be as popular as the PVV. Although stereotypically labelled liberal, recently it seems the Dutch population in general has become harsher in its views on cultural changes brought on by other nationalities and religions; perhaps the time of cultural liberalism in the Netherlands is coming to an end.