When a man known as Mozart rolls into town with a motorcade of bullet-proof limousines and six bodyguards, bystanders might normally be expected to grab their children and run for cover. In Holland, however, they know it’s only Geert Wilders MP, coming to preach for a “Nee” vote on the European Union constitution.

The right-wing politician, named after the Austrian composer on account of his eccentric hairdo, has been touring the country relentlessly for the past two weeks. And his attacks on the EU are hitting home.

On Thursday morning, after checking out of his cell at a high-security prison in Amsterdam, where he has been living since his name appeared on an Islamic death list last year, he headed for the nearby town of Zaandam. There the crowds turned out in force to cheer his arrival.

Middle-aged women with overloaded shopping baskets swarmed about him while dispatching their children between his bodyguards to ask for an autograph or to pose for photographs. Similar scenes have greeted his tour at 22 other Dutch towns and cities.

“We are handing over too many sovereign powers to the elite in Brussels,” he said while working the crowds in Zaandam. “We are giving up too many veto rights, in particular the right to set our own immigration policy.”

His call for a no vote — delivered while wearing the white suit of a missionary crusader — was cheered almost as loudly as his demand that immigration to Holland be stopped entirely.

In less than a decade Holland has been transformed from one of the most pro-European liberal states into a racially divided country ready to defy its larger neighbours by applying the brakes to the European dream.

Polls last week indicated that more than 60% of the Dutch will reject the constitution when they go to the polls on Wednesday.

Deep discontent has been generated as much by fears about the growing powers of Brussels as by a host of internal problems plaguing the country.

In a sign of desperation last week, the government broke the strict referendum rules by raiding the public coffers for an extra €3.5m (£2.4m) to support the yes campaign. In response “anti-constitutionalists” rushed to the courts to demand the same level of funding.

Signs that the government was working on a fall-back strategy have ended in disaster. Pro-government politicians tentatively suggested that the country’s first referendum in 200 years might simply have to be ignored if it produced the “wrong” result.

At the market place in Zaandam there was clearly a consensus that politics in Holland no longer served the people. Already dispirited by the arrogance of their own politicians, there is even less faith in Brussels bureaucrats.

Pim Fortuyn, the gay anti-immigration MP assassinated three years ago, received wide support for championing the same message. As in France, the referendum is fast being transformed into a vote of confidence in the national political system.

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