We’ll get to the explosive confrontation referred to in the headline — which Tommy Robinson described as “based” — further down, but first some background.
Readers of PJ Media are aware that the fallout from the invasion of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by over 70,000 migrants from Morocco is still ongoing. Even though it’s been more than a month since the initial influx of migrants on July 30 and 31, thousands remain in Ceuta, and residents are living in fear amid an alarming rise in sexual assaults and growing frustration over increasingly strained resources.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Parliament on August 28 that there were “around 5,000” migrants still in Ceuta, but the president of Ceuta’s regional government, Juan Jesús Vivas of the opposition Popular Party (PP), said two days later that the number could be as high as 10,000. Vivas also said that Marlaska told him on August 1 that there were only around 2,500 migrants remaining. If that sounds like the government can’t be trusted, it’s because it can’t. That point was brought home when Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez shifted blame away from Morocco, even though a report prepared by the National Police’s Centre for Immigration and Borders (CENIF) described Moroccan gendarmes guiding migrants during the influx. Sánchez preferred to point the finger at Israel, Russia, and far-right movements for spreading what he labeled "disinformation."
President Donald Trump weighed in on the crisis last week in an interview with GB News, saying that “Spain will be a ruined country” and that it was very sad to see “thousands of people just bum-rushing” Ceuta. He also posted on Truth Social on September 5, “So sad what is happening in Spain, a country with ZERO control of its Border. WOW!”
Trump was calling the border breach an invasion back on July 31. I documented the many others who were doing so in Elon Musk Was Right: Pedro Sánchez Is a Traitor, in reference to the SpaceX CEO calling the prime minister’s mass amnesty plan — for which so many of the migrants in Ceuta thanked him — “high treason.”
Related: Forgot About Ceuta? These Latest Videos Look Pretty Third World.
Sánchez brings up Elon Musk about as much as he brings up Israel — as foils to try to shift attention away from his own failures. He did it again on September 9, saying in a television interview, “I heard Abascal today, who applauds tariffs, applauds Elon Musk, applauds the genocide of Netanyahu, say that I have a master who is not the Spanish people. I think that is an insult to intelligence.”
Santiago Abascal is the leader of the populist Vox party in Spain. During a 2019 visit to Ceuta, he warned of the need for strong borders: “A nation without borders is not a nation, and a nation with porous, poorly defended and poorly protected borders is a nation that sooner or later will cease to exist, because borders exist to protect our freedom, our security, our prosperity and our identity.”
He sounds very much like Trump warning about Joe Biden’s border crisis, and just as Americans’ concerns over rising crime and attacks on U.S. sovereignty swept him to victory in 2024, Vox is rising in the polls. The Financial Times reports:
The rightwing populist Vox party is rated by Spaniards as the best equipped to manage immigration, as a smouldering crisis over the Ceuta border breach batters the reputation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. In a new sign of rightwing parties capitalising on anger over immigration, a poll on Monday showed that Vox — which takes a hardline stance — is ranked as the most “capable” of managing the issue, including by some mainstream conservative voters. The poll from 40dB also underscores the toll the Ceuta crisis is taking on Sánchez, one of the few European leaders who continues to espouse a liberal immigration policy, less than a year before the country’s next general election.
With this increased support for his party, Abascal went on the attack during a session of Congress Wednesday, asking Sánchez if he was "being blackmailed" by Morocco, in reference to the prime minister's many corruption scandals. He went on: "Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question, all of Spain knows that yes, that our government is in Rabat and that the presidency of our country has been handed over to Morocco." He then spoke of Sánchez's educational policies, which he said are "to teach Moroccan culture in classrooms, Arabic language, and halal menus in school cafeterias."
Sánchez turned to — you guessed it — Israel again as he tried to counterattack, saying that Abascal “applauds the tariffs of some and the genocides of others and has tried to put a bandage on the wound before it happened when he spoke of Tel Aviv and Washington."
That was the buildup to the viral moment that followed.
As Sánchez responded for the second time — declaring, “I may be a dog, but I have no master” — Abascal held up sheets of paper one by one, spelling out T-R-A-I-D-O-R (“TRAITOR”).
Lest you dismiss this as just partisan showmanship, consider more of what Sánchez said in the interview today (my emphasis):
And regarding border control, I was listening to the leader of the opposition just a few days ago say that he would be willing to invoke the article of the Constitution under which, more or less, faced with the dilemma confronting the State Security Forces and Corps on July 30 and 31, faced with the influx of young people, of civilians who arrived at the borders of Ceuta, he was more or less suggesting an armed response to that crisis.
I think that is absolutely outrageous. First, because we are not talking about invaders, but rather about people who, for the most part, are looking for a better life, for opportunities that they do not have on the other side of the border. Because social inequalities exist. We have per capita income levels on one side of the border and the other that differ by a factor of eight.
And second, because if that really is the solution proposed by the Popular Party and Vox in the event of a crisis like the one we suffered on July 30 and 31, today we would have an even greater crisis—not only in Ceuta, but also in our bilateral relations with Morocco. And, of course, a rather regrettable international image.
The same guy who invokes international law to punish Israel for defending itself now invokes Spain’s “international image” to explain why it shouldn’t defend its own borders.
Also, the AP is reporting today, Sept. 9, that Spain's national intelligence agency issued multiple warnings about plans for a mass crossing into Ceuta before the crisis unfolded, appearing to “undermine what Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said about the level of prior warning the government had before the sudden influx took place.”
It all sounds pretty traitorous to me.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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