Spain's Vox Conservatives: Put Socialist PM on 'Defendant's Bench' After Moroccan Invasion

The leadership of the Spanish right-wing party Vox called for the prosecution of the country’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Thursday after tens of thousands of foreigners invaded the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which borders Morocco, and have proceeded to terrorize the small local populace. Vox party leader Santiago Abascal placed the blame for the disastrous situation – which has resulted in dozens of deaths at press time – on Sánchez and his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), whose leadership has embraced mass migration. Sánchez is already widely reviled in his country, particularly after multiple corruption scandals and the use of a broad terrorist amnesty in 2023 to override election results that would have led to him conceding power. Polls in June showed both Vox and the establishment center-right Popular Party (PP) in position to gain a governing majority in the next election cycle. The current calamity in Ceuta followed a Spanish court ruling that effectively legalized the status of any foreigner who arrives in Spain by sea. Responding to the ruling, tens of thousands of foreigners, believed to be mostly north Africans, stormed Ceuta, swimming into the Spanish territory and rampaging through the city. Ceuta is typically home to about 80,000 people; an estimated 49,000 invaded it by sea on Thursday alone, and reports at press time indicate more continue to come, though some have returned to Morocco after being denied access to groceries, restaurants, lodging, and toilets. Sánchez, Abascal denounced, “has provoked an invasion of our border that today the Spaniards of Ceuta are living front and center.” “Sánchez acts like an enemy of Spaniards – every future stabbing and every rape will have been imported directly by Sánchez. The collapse in sanitation and housing will be the work and legacy of Pedro Sánchez because he is the top guilty party in all that we Spaniards are suffering and will suffer.” “The national emergency provoked by this emergency will only be resolved, before he steals the election, by kicking out the traitor and mafioso and placing him on the defendant’s bench,” Abascal concluded. At the European Parliament, Vox and the pan-European conservative Patriots coalition demanded an emergency session to prompt Sánchez and his government to answer questions as to how the invasion happened. The Patriots for Europe party, led by Jordan Bardella, sent a letter to the Parliament urging an emergency session in September to discuss “the Spanish Government’s refusal to fulfil[l] its obligation to protect the European border and the EU’s complacency towards hybrid attacks via immigration across the border with Morocco.” Many European leaders outside of Spain have expressed alarm about the mass migration, as entry into Spain would enable them to use Schengen privileges to travel throughout the European Union and ultimately settle outside of Spain. “Vox and Patriots denounce that the government of Pedro Sánchez has deliberately given up on protecting national sovereignty and the exterior border of the European Union,” the joint statement from the parties read, also accusing the European Commission of abetting policies that promote the “mass regularization of immigrants and allow that illegal immigration be used as a tool of political pressure against Europe.” Within Spain, Vox is spearheading opposition to mass importing of foreigners through the chaotic and violent scenes seen in Ceuta on Thursday and Friday. During a contentious debate on Spanish television, Vox’s general secretary, José María Figaredo, argued that permitting such a situation was “the beginning of the end of Europe.” “We either do something – do something now, definitive – or we are dead,” he declared, facing some resistance from the program hosts who insisted that the human rights of the invading men be respected. “While you guys continue discussing and debating, the reality is that Ceuta remains invaded,” he responded. “And the day after tomorrow they will invade the Canary Islands, and the next one Málaga, and the next one Murcia, since nothing gets resolved, there are no consequences.” Figaredo urged the government and those in power. to respect the human rights of the women and children of Ceuta, trapped in their homes to avoid being attacked by the migrants. The establishment PP also weighed in on the situation on Friday. Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo published a list of demands for Sánchez, beginning with the “immediate and massive deployment of means,” such as emergency and security personnel, to calm the situation in Ceuta. Feijóo described the situation as “not just a migration problem, but a sovereignty crisis.” Feijóo added that the government must return all invading parties and reestablish the border in Ceuta “through extraordinary measures of an immediate character.” He concluded with a demand for the government to “assume political responsibility immediately,” declaring, “the government has to say what it knew and when it knew it” about the impending invasion. Ceuta is a PP stronghold, governed by local PP leader Juan Vivas Lara for over two decades. Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.