Roberto Vaquero: the Spanish leftist pivoting to anti-immigration

Vaquero ditches the left to chase anti-immigration votes

What does a self-proclaimed leftist leader do when he starts winking at Vox voters with an anti-immigration message? Roberto Vaquero, head of the Frente Obrero (Workers' Front, a small Spanish party), has built quite a political ménage à trois. The triangle he forms with former MP Olona and Vox's electorate is, to say the least, uncomfortable.

The strategy, according to his defenders, is simple: if Vox wins votes by rejecting immigration, why not win them from the left? On that reading, Vaquero has achieved what no one else had: getting traditionally antifa sectors to embrace anti-immigration talking points. The dance of alliances doesn't matter; what matters is occupying every political space with those ideas.

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Others see it as pure opportunism. Feeding the anti-immigration narrative to compete with the right for votes is bread today, hunger tomorrow. The comparison with Pablo Iglesias then becomes inevitable: both would lack principles, but at least Iglesias managed to build a coherent political narrative. Vaquero, by contrast, risks losing his social base and ending up as a caricature of what he claimed to fight.

The irony is that while some accuse him of betraying left-wing values, others argue the opposite: that his movement is needed so the immigration debate stops being a right-wing monopoly. Who's right is hard to measure. What you can see is a leader walking a tightrope between two fires, and a left unable to decide whether to applaud or hide its face.