Corruption, Mass Immigration, and the Rise of Spain’s Far Right

A few weeks ago I was down in Madrid.

On Monday morning, Morena had to visit the US embassy, and I wanted to meet with my lawyer.

He proposed we have coffee at the bar directly outside the Supreme Court, and when I arrived, I found about 100 reporters milling around, apparently waiting for Koldo.

Yes, Koldo García, the former brothel doorman turned advisor to important socialist politicians. He was scheduled to testify that morning as part of his eponymous corruption case.

And what a scene!

There’s a truck from some far-right group called Hazte Oír driving around, with big video displays on the back saying Tu dinero, sus vicios – “your money, their vices”. This is accompanied by unflattering pictures of Pedro Sánchez and his cronies smoking cigars like Mafia bosses.

Four or five agitators from Vox are off to the side, chanting. I guess if you took a selfie from the right angle, you could make it look like a mass movement. But really it was just a few guys in polo shirts.

At some point, one of the police officers at the entrance to the Supremo gestures, and everyone snaps to attention. A hundred expensive cameras swing towards the door. But it’s a false alarm.

After an hour there’s no sign of Koldo or of anyone else.

All this hubbub, it would seem, is to get the picture of some corrupt political type stepping out of a taxi and buttoning his jacket on his way into the Supreme Court. And every day they need a new picture. Since seeing the media scrum outside the court building that morning, I’ve started paying attention.

It’s a lot of time and money, but every “paper” in Spain wants to report on… what, exactly?

Sex, money, and socialism

Up until a couple of days ago, in fact, the top story around Spain was corruption in the ruling PSOE party.

There’s not much that’s really new here.

I wrote about Caso Koldo a couple of times, as well as about the sex scandals.

It’s pretty long and involved. And Prime Mintster Pedro Sánchez, despite being surrounded by people who are now under investigation or in prison, claims to know nothing.

What happened a couple of weeks ago is that Santos Cerdán (formerly one of the highest-ranking members of the Socialist party) abruptly resigned and was sent to prison for his alleged part in the whole thing.

He hasn’t been convicted of anything – the prison bit is to keep him from talking to his former associates, tampering with the evidence or (perhaps) fleeing the country.

About that evidence: Koldo García, as it turns out, was recording private conversations between himself and other members of the various plots. Never hurts to be able to blackmail people later, or strike a plea bargain if the whole thing goes badly, I guess.

It’s unclear how many recordings exist, but a few have been released to the press – deepening the scandal.

Influencers and escorts

Among the new revelations from the recordings included comments on the services received from various escorts with whom these gentlemen were organizing parties.

There’s nothing illegal about prostitution in Spain. But it doesn’t sound good at all, given that the PSOE elsewhere claims to be running the most feminist government in history.

“La Carlotta se enrolla que te cagas” was briefly a famous quote from José Luis Ábalos, the former minister of transport. I take that to mean that Carlotta (an influencer from Málaga) works hard for the money, and brings great enthusiasm to the interaction.

Carlotta – who lives in Dubai, and sells courses that teach people how to become millionaires from income earned on YouTube – is a regular-looking girl, except that she’s done that thing to her lips… whatever it is that makes them extra puffy.

I don’t know if she’s truly a millionaire. But I’ve heard that a lot of these influencer types have occasional side gigs as escorts. I guess it’s a form of diversification. Multiple income streams. (Although not exactly passive.)

Carlotta’s book, De Camarera a Millonaria, has 4.1 stars on Amazon Spain. On Goodreads, it’s only 3.6 stars, but almost all books seem to be rated lower on Goodreads than on Amazon. I’m not sure why.

Allegedly, it’s based on the “Law of Attraction”.

The rise of the far right

According to the surveys of voting intention (which can obviously be wrong) this corruption and prostitution thing has so far only benefited VOX.

(The opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo of the center-right Popular Party, has apparently failed to make a positive impression on anyone, despite having been in politics for quite a long time.)

Female voters, in particular, are said to be burnt out with the Socialist party – although I doubt that the ladies leaving the PSOE are turning to the far right. In any case, Spaniards seem to be moving around, politically.

Pedro Sánchez hasn’t resigned yet, despite his wife, his brother, and his closest friends all being investigated by the courts. So the next election is in two years, and the results might be a bit different than what we’re used to.

Then again, a whole lot of other things can happen in two years.

Personally, I’m sick of hearing about the “rise of the far right”, because nobody in the media has the balls to call it what it really is.

What I’d call it is “the political establishment’s continued failure to address legitimate concerns held by many millions of people – mostly, concerns about immigration”.

And I’m saying this as an immigrant myself: people have real questions.

I have them. I walk around Barcelona and look at the sorts of people who are obviously here for all the wrong reasons, and I wonder: What exactly is the plan here? What is our end game?

So far, it would appear that the plan is to ignore the entire issue, and call anyone who asks questions a fascist.

And that brings us to the recent events in Torre Pacheco.

Immigrants vs right wingers in Torre Pacheco

Torre Pacheco is an agricultural town of about 40,000 people in Murcia, way down south. Before last weekend, I’d never heard of it. I don’t know if anybody had.

But several days ago, “tres jóvenes de origen magrebí” beat up a local grandfather. They didn’t rob him or anything. Allegedly, they just thought it would make a good viral TikTok video.

(According to this article, the victim actually testified that he was beaten by one magrebí while two more filmed it on their phones. Officially, police are investigating the motive.)

La Vanguardia usually avoids mentioning the nationalities of people who commit crimes. But origen magrebí means they’re from the North of Africa – so, probably, Morocco or Algeria.

The picture of the abuelo with his whole head bruised up started making the rounds over the weekend, and soon, some far right groups had arrived in Torre Pacheco, looking to start fights with North Africans.

What followed were several pretty tense nights of right-wingers patrolling the streets “hunting” immigrants. It seems like the police kept things mostly under control, but there were about a dozen arrests.

Police later caught the three attackers – one made it almost to the French border – and found that they were Moroccans, but they weren’t from Torre Pacheco either.

Last I heard, police had also arrested the head of a Telegram channel called Deport them Now EU, who lives with his parents right up the coast here in Mataró, for inciting hate crimes.

He’s allegedly the one who was encouraging people to go to Murcia and start fights with immigrants.

So neither the attackers nor the right-wingers were actually locals from Torre Pacheco. All in all, it sounds like a shitty situation fuelled by social media that happened to a bunch of people who wanted nothing to do with it.

Oh well. Maybe we can talk about immigration now.

The arguments in favor of mass immigration

Two of the main arguments in favor of mass immigration here in Europe are:

1. That it’s good for the economy, and…
2. That we’re going to need a lot more of it to pay people’s pensions in the future.

I’m not an economist, but I basically agree with argument number one. A larger population can grow the economy, especially if more of that population is willing to work. About argument number two I have some doubts.

And on that topic, yesterday I saw an article about France’s Prime Minister, who has announced that the country is about to go flying off the fiscal cliff into bankruptcy.

He’s proposed a sort of austerity plan: cutting government jobs, raising taxes, eliminating two public holidays, and freezing both pensions and salaries for public employees. He also wants to review the system of unemployment benefits to incentivize work. (That last bit doesn’t sound very French, but whatever…)

The PM says this is their last chance to ward off a Greek-style disaster. But the opposition parties on both right and left are now threatening to fight him tooth and nail to keep things as they are.

France is sort of like Spain’s rich uncle in the EU balance of power. And hearing about impending fiscal doom from them makes me wonder when we’ll be hearing something similar down here in Iberia.

Because I doubt our national finances are much more solid than theirs are.

Ironically, France has also got quite a few immigrants – around 7 million (or 10% of the population) according to the 2021 census.

So if 7 million immigrants isn’t enough to keep your pension system working, I guess it’s reasonable to ask how many more you’d need.

(Spain, actually, has around 9 million immigrants, which make up 19% of the population. Is that enough? Or do we need several million more? Is there some magic number? I think it’s time we have this conversation.)

The social contract en papel mojado

Back in high school we learned about Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and the social contract.

Basically, it’s the idea was that people come together in societies, giving up some of their natural liberties in exchange for the benefits that living under a government creates for everyone.

In modern terms, this amounts to: you’re born, you get an education, you work hard, and you’ll be able to afford things, own a house, start a family, and retire with some dignity. Meanwhile, the government provides infrastructure, protects private property, and makes sure you’re not beat up by TikTokkers in search of viral content.

These days, though, it seems like the social contract is under attack from all angles: cities can often feel unsafe, the government can’t (or won’t) stop petty crime, the housing crisis is crushing the dreams of a whole generation, and some people are finding that it’s easier to become an influencer and move to Dubai than it is to get a regular job here in Spain.

And now, the welfare states are headed for collapse.

It’s a difficult situation. Probably time for some strong, clear-headed leadership to take Spain in a better direction.

Too bad the people who are supposed to save us are all on trial for corruption.

Yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. A few weeks ago I wrote about my own immigrant story. One of the larger points of that article is that there are lots of different kinds of immigrants, and making blanket statements like “Immigration Good” or “Immigration Bad” is stupid. My own opinions on immigration are pretty nuanced. Anyway, I’ve also got an article about the Spanish Housing Crisis (one of the causes of which is the massive influx of immigrants from all countries). That’s another problem that the government seems incapable of solving. What do you think? Hit me up in the comments…

P.P.S. As I was finishing this article, a new corruption scandal broke – this one involving Cristóbal Montoro, head of Hacienda back during the Rajoy years. As you may know if you’ve been around for awhile, I’m no friend of Hacienda. But it’s also true that if corruption is your big political issue, you can’t really vote for the PP either. Both major parties have serious problems. Bad times for the Spanish voter.