“You are a Vox voter and they do not enter the Government , what would be your perception?” It’s an interesting question pitched to me by Spanish commentator and organiser of new platform Iniciativa Extramuros, Carlos Collarte. Luckily for me I don’t need the answer but the party who will have to make that decision, in the shape of Vox, are running out of time to decide.
Recent opinion polls have Vox touching 20%, an extraordinary recovery from four years ago when they polled less than 13% and a string of regional election losses to PP in places such as Murcia had some writing their obituary. Now though, Vox will have to make a decision.
For Carlos, he suggests a unique approach. “I think Vox has to join and if there is not movement (on immigration) in the coalition, you immediately have to break it.” It would be a high risk approach but Carlos lays out his reasoning.
“Sanchez has been able to do whatever he wanted because the coalition partners are terrified that if they go to an election they are going to get beat. So if migration is in the same way that Ayuso accepts immigration, you have to break it immediately. Because there’s also a certain type of voter and sometimes myself who asks why am I going to vote for a party that when it has the chance to take power, doesn’t take power?”
Partido Popular and Vox: Different Voters, Different Worlds
There is also the huge divergence in the type of voter between PP and Vox that opinion polls regularly show (PP could not completely unfairly translate to pensioner party in English whereas Vox does skew significantly younger) and Carlos alludes to.
“The thing about living in the UK and following Spanish politics is that they are kind of like the Tories. They are elderly voters who are comfortable and as long as immigrants work its not a problem for them because they already have a house.”
Carlos makes the point that despite changes of government, the area he feels right wing parties need to get brave to do is dismantle the state apparatus that has existed since the transition.
“The only party in Spain that has the habit of will in power and using power is PSOE. PSOE is the party that has built Spain for the last 40 years. PSOE want to get a ministry , own it and shape it to their society. Despite the rhetoric of Podemos this is something they never did. In a political party, I expect them to have a will to govern.”
“They think they are going to die before there are problems” – Carlos Collarte
Carlos is largely negative about Europe’s short term prospects. “Western countries are not growing. One reason is the EU and the other is demographics, most of the people are elders, they don’t have a long term horizon. They think they are going to die before there are problems, which I think is false.”
“For the UK , France and Spain there will be a rupture in the state . Immigration is not sustainable , our finances are not sustainable. It’s not kids in France (recorded before the expansion of the riots in France) that will bring down the state but it’s a welfare state that was built for people who didn’t play with it and were younger.” However, part of the reason for Iniciativa Extramuros is that he and his fellow organisers are not ready to fall into despair just yet.
“I’m not a doomerist”
“I don’t want to sound like we are doomed. We have all these problems (housing, immigration, welfare state) but I’m not a doomerist. We will have to put our houses in order , we will have to take priority decisions. We need to substitute immigration, force our welfare state to be less generous with elderly people and start putting that money where it will help people to prosper.”
The full audio interview with Carlos Collarte of Iniciativa Extramuros can be found below.
