Spain's hard-right Vox party vows to deport eight million people who 'have not adopted our customs' or 'impose a foreign religion'
'Of our country's 47 million inhabitants... eight million are people who have come from different origins in a very short period of time,' said party spokesperson Rocio de Meer yesterday.
'It is, therefore, extraordinarily difficult for them to adapt to our ways and customs' she said, adding these individuals would be marked out for 'remigration' because Spaniards 'have the right to survive as a people'.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal later declared his party would deport 'everyone who came to commit crimes, who tries to impose a foreign religion, who mistreats or demeans women, who wants to live off the work of others.'
'We don't know how many there are,' he added. 'But when we reach the government, we will. And they will all go.'
The fiery rhetoric comes as Vox enjoys a significant boost in the polls after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 's Socialist Party (POSE) slipped in the wake of a corruption scandal.
The PSOE was rocked in early June when police released a report alleging graft by top official Santos Cerdan, who has since been removed from his posts and is now being held in custody.
Sanchez, who leads a minority coalition government comprising far-left party Sumar, has thus far resisted mounting calls from the opposition to resign and call a snap election.
Pollsters Db40, who surveyed 2,000 people from June 26 to 30, said support for the PSOE fell to 27% - the party's lowest rating in two years - from 29.8% in its previous monthly survey.
The main opposition People's Party was well ahead on 33.3% support, while Vox - the third-largest party in Spain's parliament - climbed 1.3 percentage points to 15.2%.
The leader of the People's Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, has gone on record saying that he is not fond of coalition governments.
In 2023, his party ultimately won the most votes, but he was unable to form a government and Sanchez swooped in, having drummed up a patchwork alliance of the Left and various small parties to govern.
Now, however, with his party's popularity at an all-time high, Feijoo is pressuring Sanchez to call a snap election and could well team with the hard-right Vox party to forge a majority coalition government should such a scenario arise.
'Let's end this nightmare,' he told supporters at a rally last month as he lambasted Sanchez. 'We want to know when he's going to sign his resignation letter.'
The People's Party has previously rejected proposed deportation plans put forward by Vox.
Sanchez has defended Spain's immigration policies and dismissed Vox's calls for forced deportations.
'Spain was for decades a land of departure, of striving beyond our borders,' he said, yesterday referring to Spanish emigration to the Americas and elsewhere. 'Today it is a land of welcome, and those who arrive contribute with their effort to building a better Spain.'
Sanchez has apologised and promised to make changes at PSOE, which will be announced during a congress this weekend.
But he has said he intends to stay on through the end of the term and to lead the party in the next election in 2027.
A majority of respondents deemed Sanchez's reaction to the crisis, including the firing of Cerdan, as belated and insufficient, although most Socialist voters in the survey said he had acted in a timely and appropriate fashion.
On June 30, a judge ordered that Cerdan be held in pre-trial detention, a move that made the situation even more delicate for the Prime Minister.
The poll showed 41.2% of those surveyed want Sanchez to call an early ballot, while 17.6% want him to step down and let someone else lead the party.
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