Rufián's attack on VOX backfires: the speech that boosts their campaign

Rufián: uncomfortable truths, paradoxes and a conspiracy theory or two

There is a moment when Gabriel Rufián becomes the centre of attention: when he speaks, the right gets furious and the left feels uneasy. His latest speech on Ceuta and Segarro has once again hit a nerve. The question he poses is direct: who wants to bring down Sánchez's government? His answer, he claims, lies not in Congress but in Rabat and in the lodges.

The speech that splits the chamber

Rufián claimed that Segarro wants to end Pedro Sánchez's government with the help of the PP, VOX, Israel and the police. The formulation, somewhere between half-truth and conspiracy narrative, has drawn mixed reactions. Some argue that the ERC MP (Republican Left of Catalonia) tells it like it is, and that the tension he generates is proof of his effectiveness. On the other side, he is accused of inventing some of those truths and of failing to call conspiracy theories the ones he himself builds.

The sharpest criticism, however, does not come from the right, but from those who remind him that he himself props up the government he claims to defend with his votes. If Sánchez's government is a Segarro «puppet», as Rufián suggests, what is ERC doing keeping it in power? That incoherence is the flank that hurts him most.

The speaker's paradox: free campaigning for VOX?

One analysis is gaining traction: every time Rufián tries to demonise VOX, he becomes the best advertising campaign for Santiago Abascal's party. Raúl Gallart's tweet sums it up: if you're having a bad day, think of Rufián, who tried to demonise VOX and ended up running the best ad campaign for voting for Abascal's party. The paradox is uncomfortable: the harshest attack becomes a megaphone for the adversary.

And there lies the detail many overlook: Rufián's speech, in its attempt to take VOX apart, gives Abascal's party exactly what it needs: prominence and an enemy to point at.

The shadow of the 11M and the Anglosphere

The conversation does not stop at Ceuta. In the reactions, the 11M (the 2004 Madrid train bombings) appears as an alleged state operation to change the government and install Zapatero, more in tune with Segarro. It is a line of analysis claiming that the PSOE (the Spanish Socialist Party) kept quiet about what it knew. No court ruling backs it up, but the idea lives on in certain quarters.

The Anglosphere and Zionists are also mentioned as forces controlling Spanish politics. The right, in this view, would be a tentacle of the Anglosphere. These claims belong to the realm of speculation, but they reveal a deep unease with the official narrative.

If Rufián is the best we've got, what does that say about the political class? The question remains open. What is clear is that his speech, somewhere between truth and paranoia, achieves something few manage: getting everyone else to agree on one single thing. That they don't want him to speak.