Racism for all tastes

PalmaIf one achievement can be attributed to the far-right this legislature, it is that of setting the ideological framework for the debate on immigration, with the Spanish government's extraordinary regularization in the spotlight in recent weeks. The pull effect, the collapse of public services, criminalization, and the instrumentalization of women's rights as an excuse to exhibit racist behavior are not the exclusive domain of Vox, with a PP concerned about capturing all the 'decentralized' votes and to the right that it can in the next elections. "It's not enough, now we want much more, more majorities, more stability, fewer obstacles, fewer setbacks," thus summarized the President of the Government last Thursday, Marga Prohens, during the presentation of her candidacy to once again lead the Balearic PP. The popular leader brandished the flag of freedom, another common mantra when it comes to exalting the party's values.

In this way, the Non-Law Proposal (PNL) that the PSIB defended in the Parliament's plenary session on Tuesday, regarding the regularization of migrants, was no more useful than to corroborate the harmony between the PP and Vox on the matter. The deputy Cristina Gil was in charge of presenting the popular party's arguments. Gil convincingly justifies the PP's stance on sensitive issues close to the far-right, such as the sidelining of democratic memory policies and the opposition to the massive regularization of people already living in the Balearic Islands, even though the national PP voted in favor of processing a Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) in this regard. Of course, Gil did not innovate and limited herself to repeating the usual litany, because it was one of those occasions when it's advisable to play it safe. It is already the umpteenth time that the popular party proclaims that they want legal and orderly immigration. It might seem that this is a weighty reason to regularize the situation of those who have already been living here for months. But no, for the PP it is a compelling reason why newcomers cannot have the same rights and obligations as the rest of the citizens and continue in a legal limbo.

The socialist deputy Omar Lamin praised the benefits of regularization in Spanish, and he did so, as is customary for the PSIB, in front of a group of migrants who witnessed how the right and the far-right denigrated them from the public gallery. The question that needs to be asked here is whether the members of the PSIB explained to these people that the repercussions of a PNL are practically nil, beyond debating for a while before going to lunch. One should also ask whether the socialists do not instrumentalize the migrants who go to Parliament to overact for public display and social media, instead of taking seriously the need to organize the regularization process well. It is enough to recall that the Foreigners department is not capable of carrying out ordinary processes to infer that we need to get our act together for things to go well. On the other hand, it is striking that Lamin, a Sahrawi, did not even have a mention for his people, who have been left out of the regularization process. Another setback after the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, supported Morocco's proposal to consider the Sahara an autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.

Political romanticism

However, the migratory disagreements between PP and PSIB did not affect the harmony of the two major parties in moving forward with the decree of measures to alleviate the consequences of the war in Iran on the Balearic economic fabric. The occasional lovers recalled the affection that unites them and pushed aside the nagging of the far-right, incapable of making constructive proposals beyond railing against the globalist agenda, the destruction of Spain and the extinction of Spaniards at the hands of ruthless Muslims, and advocating for the annihilation of Catalan.

Vox does not fit within the margins of useful politics and its representatives have no discursive skills beyond constant anger. The spokesperson for the far-right, Manuela Cañadas, did not spare epithets for the alliance of populars and socialists. "This decree should be the decree of deceit by the PP and PSOE", said Cañadas, in addition to assuring that the initiative was nothing more than a smokescreen to make disappear by magic the PP's inability to move forward with budgets. "The same as Sánchez at a national level", criticized the spokesperson amid the laughter of the deputies, as if it were a comedy monologue. "Survival clamp of the corrupt bipartisanship against the citizens of the Balearic Islands"; "Consummation of a betrayal"; "The PP in the arms of the PSIB, the unions and the usual employers' association"; "The PP uses a conflict thousands of kilometers away to manage the Balearic Islands as if they were its 'cortijo'"; "No to wokism", were some of the pearls that Cañadas went on to unravel.

But, beyond the comicality of the situation, Vox issued a warning to the PP as it knows best: by paralyzing initiatives. The far-right overturned all the populars' amendments to the strategic projects law, with which they intended to modify dozens of laws. This warning leads us to believe that the idyll with the PSIB will not go any further.