*3.1. Vox*

Preceded by the short-lived Fuerza Nueva and the equally short-lived and regionally-focused parties Plataforma per Catalunya and Espanya 2000 (Casals 2016), and later supported electorally by such minor right-wing parties as Alternativa Española or Comunión Tradicionalista Carlista, Vox was founded in a rather disorganised manner in December 2013 (Kadner 2014) and became active for the 2014 EP elections ( 2018) 4. Until the Andalusia vote in December 2018 (discussed by (Ortiz 2019) in this

<sup>4</sup> The normal practice of the publishing house behind this work, Ikusle, is that it does not provide the names of authors, possibly because it is linked to the Basque nationalist movement Izquierda Abertzale (previously close to ETA). Similarly, it provides no information on the place of publication. I am grateful to Pablo Ortiz Barquero of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville for this information.

issue) it had been, at best, a marginal force in Spanish politics with just four mayors (two of whom had switched parties) of tiny municipalities and twenty-two municipal councillors. In the 2015 municipal elections it had obtained a total of only slightly over 51,000 votes, i.e., 0.25% of all the votes cast (El Confidencial 2015). The party defines its fundamental positions in two position papers: *Manifiesto fundacional* (Vox España 2014), and *100 medidas para una España viva* (approximately: One Hundred Measures to promote Spanish Life and Values) (Vox España 2018).

Its position on the right of the political spectrum emerges clearly in statements given in *Vox España, la tentación populista española* ( 2018, passim), and explicitly in the positions outlined by (Piñar Pinedo 2015) in which he categorises Vox as filling the vacuum on the right of Spanish politics and as holding fundamental views characteristic of the Right including sharp criticism of the EU. However, it is to be noted that these ideas and others fundamental for Vox did not emerge with the creation of the party. The book by (Abascal Conde and Sánchez 2008) contains already a grea<sup>t</sup> deal of what are now the official positions of Vox.

Given that Vox has emerged so recently as a force in Spanish politics, analyses by scholars are rare. However, those to be found in the webliography of different print and web publications by Casals merit particular attention (Casals 2019)5. In light of the fact that it is a truth universally acknowledged, including by Abascal himself (see above and Abascal 2015), that Vox is a party of the right, the questions in the various analyses which exist by other scholars on the nature of Vox have been published in the daily press and so far revolve around the matter of whether it should be categorised as a right-wing party, a far-right party, or as on the radical-right, and also whether its language might be considered (or not) neo-fascist (Anduiza 2018; Acha 2019a, 2019b).

A tremendous opportunity was provided for Vox by the surge in Catalan separatism, which the party seized on. This coincided with the political dissatisfaction caused when the new "Statute of Autonomy" (i.e., the quasi-constitution of Catalonia) which had been accepted by a large majority of Catalans in a referendum in 2006, was challenged in the Constitutional Court by the PP and some autonomous communities. The Court's largely negative judgement, finally released in 2010, unleashed a significant rise in popular support for independence, and the organisation of the independence referendum of 1 October 2017, which was accompanied by civil disturbances (Humlebæk 2015; Lecours 2018).

Since the elections preceding and following the referendum on 1 October 2017 the "Catalan question" was never far from media attention. From 12 February 2019 when it began, i.e., during the pre-campaign and the campaigns for all the elections of April and May 2019, the trial in the *Tribunal Supremo* in Madrid of 12 persons facing various serious criminal charges relating to the planning and holding of the referendum was heavily mediatised. Additionally, in the trial Vox has increased the visibility of itself and its position by becoming a civil party (*acusación popular*) to the indictments. These facts and media attention concord with the starting point of the policy statement *100 medidas para la España viva,* which takes a hard line in order to deal resolutely with the continuing Catalan crisis.

In addition to all the above, the continuing revelations of widespread political and commercial corruption (put by (Gómez Reino and Llamares 2019, p. 296) at nearly 2000 cases by 2014, and certainly higher since that date) suggested that the problem of corruption was far from settled. Vox España is doing the same thing as AfD in Germany: In a moment of political failure and fluidity it has positioned itself as in touch with and expressing the real needs of the Spanish people and both willing and able to dominate and correct the definition of national identity in an unstable world.

<sup>5</sup> Information received from Pablo Ortiz Barquero of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide is gratefully acknowledged.
