Vox’s Emergence

During the 2010’s, Spain stood out in the European context for its relatively limited far-right electoral success, compared to other European countries. What was often referred to as the “Spanish exception” ended in December 2018. Vox, often described as a radical far-right party or populist radical right party, entered the Andalusian Parliament with 12 seats. Vox then made national strides, going from 0 seats in the 2016 election to 24 in 2019. A few months later, Spain held a second set of elections on November 10th, in which Vox more than doubled its newly earned parliamentary seats, going from 24 to 52. The conservative Partido Popular (PP) suffered a 71-seat loss in the 2016 national election, ending up with only 66 seats, down from its previous total.

Vox’s Historical Background

Vox was founded in 2013 by Santiago Abascal, a former Basque politician of the PP, who was disgruntled with what he viewed as the party’s tolerant attitude towards Catalan separatists. Abascal’s political career was shaped by his time as a city councilor and a member of the Basque parliament representing the municipality of Álava. It was a time under constant threat of separatist-motivated violence and terrorist attacks committed by the Basque ETA movement. His time as a Basque politician in the PP shaped his skepticism towards separatist action and his Spanish nationalist views. He promoted the Defense of the Spanish Nation Foundation in 2006, a right-wing ideological think tank that shaped Vox’s early platform. Vox is often described as radical, rather than extreme, a clarification meant to explain that it operates within Spain’s democratic system. One of Vox’s main areas of focus, which sets it apart from far-right parties across Europe, is its ambition to dismantle the system of autonomous communities enshrined in Spain’s constitution. After Abascal’s breakaway from the PP, Vox remained a political outlier. In 2017, Vox joined a lawsuit against the Catalan leaders for the unauthorized 2017 plebiscite calling for Catalan independence from Spain. Their active leadership in the trials against Catalan separatist leaders gave them major exposure on the Spanish political scene.

The Driving Force: National Unity

Vox’s founding manifesto states that the system of statutes established by the 1978 Constitution, which grants autonomy to regions like Catalonia, fractures Spanish socio-political life. This echoes Francoist ideology by rejecting decentralized governance and emphasizing the traditional values inherent to Franco’s National Catholicism. Memories of former dictator Francisco Franco’s Spain and his treatment of Catalan nationalism as an existential threat to national unity remain in the Catalan consciousness. A driving force behind Spanish polarization has been, and remains, the problem of constitutional legitimacy, as seen in ETA’s violence in the Basque Country and, more recently, in Catalonia. Vox’s emergence can be attributed to its appeals to unify Spain and address grievances over separatist action.

Franco’s Legacy in Vox’s Politics

Beyond fighting separatism, Vox focuses its policies on Spanish cultural battles, aimed at reigniting nationalism, often in opposition to regions like Catalonia. For example, after the Spanish Cortes overturned Catalonia’s ban on bullfighting in 2017, Vox selected former matadors [bullfighters] for Congress with Vox in the 2019 elections. The symbol of the bull and bullfighting are important to Vox in “reformulating Spanish nationalism” and in ensuring their history is presented in a positive light. The party also led an initiative to repeal Aragón’s Law of Historical Memory. The law was aimed at increasing historical recognition of the victims of the Spanish Civil War and dictatorship. However, some conservative groups argued that the law was imbued with ideology, with the vice president of Aragón, a member of Vox, calling the law “sectarian.” But support for Franco goes beyond cultural symbols or historical education: Vox has also placed former generals on the ballot in regional parliamentary elections who signed a petition opposing the removal of Franco’s remains at the Franco Mausoleum in the Valley of the Fallen. Beyond these domestic battles, Vox also takes a hardline stance on foreign affairs, such as the peninsula of Gibraltar that has been under British sovereignty since the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, but is claimed by Spanish nationalists to this day.

Vox and Border Tensions

Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status had to be re-negotiated as it is a UK non-self-governing territory, and Spanish authorities policed it at ports and airports during the Brexit negotiations. Vox had a history of demonstrating its desire to reclaim Gibraltar for Spain, displaying a Spanish flag on the rock of Gibraltar in 2016. In 2019, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar even brought a criminal complaint against four leaders of Vox for “inciting hatred” against the people of Gibraltar. 

Anti-Immigration Stance

While Vox’s platform may have initially focused on Spanish issues of nationalism and culture wars, the party also adopted typical European populist policies in regards to immigration. In 2025, an alleged assault of a Spanish shopkeeper by three Moroccan men in the town of Torre-Pacheco led to organized riots that targeted immigrants. The riots were driven by social media group chats on the popular communication app Telegram. The day the unrest began, Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, shared the video of the elderly man who was assaulted on his social media, and wrote: “España padece una invasión migratoria brutal” [Spain suffers a brutal migratory invasion]. 

Vox’s Ups and Downs

Despite their adoption of traditional populist ideals, Vox represents a democratic continuation of Spanish far-right political battles. It showcases a transition from Spain’s first dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera, to Franco, to modern, democratic Spain. Parallel to the separatist movement in Catalonia losing momentum, Vox likewise is losing political momentum. It went from 52 to 33 seats in the 2023 national elections. Despite the recent slowdown in popularity of the party, Vox’s political presence is consistent with a broad populist wave across Europe not unique to Spain. The PP normalized relations with Vox in parliament. However, in the 2024 European Parliament elections, Vox received only 9.6% of the vote in Spain. Its group in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe (PfE), secured 84 of 720 seats. Vox’s emergence onto the Spanish political scene in 2019 and its subsequent lagging growth in recent years point towards how separatist action can be a driving force behind growth in the Spanish far-right.