It’s kind of interesting, too.
For one thing, a court in Madrid has charged eight individuals with the attempted assassination of the now-retired founder of Vox, the Spanish ‘far-right’ party.
In 2023, eighty-year-old Alejo Vidal-Quadras was walking down a street in a tony Madrid neighborhood when a motorbike pulled up and the passenger shot him.
Sounds like your average either attempted robbery or political rival sort of hit, right?
But it wasn’t in this case.
Spain’s High Court charged eight individuals on Wednesday with the attempted assassination of former right wing politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras over his ties to an Iranian opposition group and support for dissident groups.
Vidal-Quadras, 80, a founder of Spain’s far-right Vox party, was shot in the face by a motorbike pillion passenger as he walked through Madrid’s upscale Salamanca neighbourhood on November 9, 2023. The bullet passed through his jaw.
Investigating judge Santiago Pedraz said the assault was ordered by unidentified individuals seeking revenge for Vidal-Quadras’ advocacy for resistance to Iran’s clerical government.
Iranian hit teams have been targeting regime opponents all over Europe.
…The Dutch intelligence agency said earlier this year it suspected Tehran of being behind two assassination attempts in Europe. The suspected hitman in the Vidal-Quadras case was arrested in Netherlands, where he is also linked to an assassination attempt on an Iranian resident.
…Iran had included Vidal-Quadras on a sanctions list in October 2022, in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd arrested for allegedly flouting Iran’s mandatory dress code.
Vox, the party Vidal-Quadras founded, has been on something of a tear in the past two years, as the socialist government of Pedro Sanchez lurches from catastrophe (witness the blackout) to corruption accusation disaster and keeps losing polling share to Vox.
There are mounting calls for Sanchez’s resignation and he is doggedly digging in anyways. Classically, he’s seen the light after the corruption scandal explodes and is touting his proposed measures as a way to ensure it never happens again.
LESSONS WERE LEARNED
Of course, with him remaining as prime minister.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez presented anti-corruption measures in response to the mounting corruption cases involving his Socialist Party, and again said he would not step down from office.
Speaking in parliament Wednesday at an extraordinary session about a corruption probe involving a former Socialist Party official, the Spanish leader took responsibility for his poor judgement but repeatedly said he would not step down, calling himself “an honest politician” with “the pride of leading an exemplary party.”
“I will not throw in the towel,” Sánchez said.
The left-wing Spanish leader spoke about a week after a Supreme Court judge ordered the pretrial detention of Santos Cerdán, a former aide to the prime minister and previously the third-most senior member of the Socialist Party, over allegations that he received kickbacks for public works contracts.
On Wednesday, Sánchez presented 15 anti-corruption measures, including bringing more transparency to political and public financing, and working with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to crack down on graft. Other measures involved blacklisting companies found guilty of corruption, using artificial intelligence to oversee public procurement contracts, and sanctioning political parties involved in graft.
Yeah, okay.
It’s getting nasty and tres personal.
Pedro Sánchez lived off father-in-law’s ‘gay brothels’, say opponents
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been accused in parliament of profiting from the proceeds of gay brothels reportedly run by his father-in-law, ratcheting up a political furore.
Alberto Feijóo, the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), alluded in parliament to gay saunas and brothels allegedly run by Sabiniano Gómez, the father of Sánchez’s wife.
Until now, mainstream politicians had refrained from invoking Gómez’s murky past, but, in front of a packed chamber debating corruption allegations rocking the government, Feijóo accused Sánchez of benefiting from the business.
The opposition leader called Sánchez “a lucrative participant in the abominable business of prostitution”, asking pointedly: “But what brothels have you lived off?”
As Sanchez stews in his own self-made misery, Vox’s Santiago Abascal has had quite a spring. He was the only Spanish politician (and one of only a handful of Europeans like Meloni) invited to the Trump inauguration and his party, now the third most powerful party in Spain, keeps gaining followers. It is particularly popular with Spanish youth, much as the AfD and other populist parties in Europe.
Spain is yet another EU country in which the right-wing is most popular amongst the youth. In this case, VOX would win a plurality amongst the Spanish youth.
If a national election were to be held today, the party would win a plurality in both the 18-24 & 25-34yr old age groups pic.twitter.com/gUz2MoRwmc
— S 🇦🇲🇱🇧 (@Shifty_Coffee) July 10, 2025
Vox has sworn to revoke the Sanchez government’s recognition of Palestine as a state.
And part of their appeal is again the question of immigration, which is affecting the Spanish just as severely as other countries in the EU.
Spain has had a new socialist government for just a few months and already illegal migration into the country is up by 500%. This isn’t a coincidence. pic.twitter.com/vgEepMlxi1
— RAW EGG NATIONALIST (@Babygravy9) February 22, 2024
Sanchez’s socialist agenda has exacerbated the problem horrifically.
Right on time. Spain’s new left-wing government is weaponising migration to change Spain forever: amnesty for illegals already in the country, a collapse of the border so even more can come in. This is the playbook wherever in the Western world leftists come to power. pic.twitter.com/rGrLhoU1Qp
— RAW EGG NATIONALIST (@Babygravy9) April 13, 2024
Today, Vox announced its plan to deal with the influx of uninvited foreigners – everyone back IN the boats, noting that they haven’t really been the best or most grateful guests.
When in Spain, do as the Spanish do, or else.
Spain’s far-Right party Vox has vowed to deport around eight million people if it wins the next election.
This week, party leaders said they wanted to remove all people of foreign origin who have not adopted Spanish customs – a shift from their previous position of only deporting those in the country illegally.
Rocío de Meer, Vox’s spokeswoman for demographic emergency and social policies, said the policy would mean expelling “millions of people who have recently come to our country and have not adapted to our customs”.
More than seven million people could be eligible for what she called “re-emigration”, Ms de Meer said on Monday.
“Of our country’s 47 million inhabitants, roughly seven million – or more than seven million, because we have to take into account the second generation – eight million are people who have come from different origins in a very short period of time,” she said.
“It is therefore extraordinarily difficult for them to adapt to our ways and customs.”
Unlike Germany and, say, the French, the centrist People’s Party in Spain, the number two dogs, has already said there would be no cordon sanitaire thrown around Vox. While Vox considers the PP’s immigration policy ‘too soft,’ the two parties already govern together in several regions and local municipalities and do just fine.
The Spanish opposition People’s Party (PP) would not apply a ‘cordon sanitaire’ to the far-right Vox party in government, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said on Sunday.
At the close of the two-day PP Congress in Madrid, where Núñez Feijóo was re-elected with almost 100% of the votes, the right-wing opposition leader made it clear that he does not exclude governing with Vox, Spanish news agency Servimedia reported.
Vox, a member of the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group in the European Parliament, is the third largest force in Madrid. Vox’s voters, the PP leader stated, “deserve respect”, and he is not willing to “corner them”.
And in a complete repudiation of the German and French mainstream party attitude, PP leader Núñez Feijóo said he respected the voters who supported Vox and was not willing to isolate them from the government.
…It remains to be seen whether this new stance will also be replicated at the European level, where the centrist European People’s Party (EPP) still keeps its distance from parties “to its right,” but the shift is clear. VOX is no longer an excluded party, and its voters, Feijóo insists, “deserve respect.”
This shift in strategy comes after the failed government talks of 2023. Although the PP won the most votes in that year’s general election, it fell well short of a majority. Feijóo explicitly rejected an alliance with VOX , leaving the PP unable to form a government. Feijóo is now aiming for a scenario where the PP governs alone, without coalition partners, but open to “parliamentary agreements” in Congress. His proposal is summed up in one dilemma: “Either [Socialist prime minister] Sánchez or me.”
In his closing speech, Feijóo made it clear that he rejects the idea of excluding any major party from political dialogue—not VOX on the right, and not the Socialists (PSOE) on the left. However, he drew a distinction between the current leadership under prime minister Sánchez—what he calls sanchismo—and a future, more moderate version of the PSOE that might be willing to rebuild national consensus.
Now, THAT’S a radical.
