Spain’s Pedro Sánchez is a progressive outlier in Europe – and over Ceuta, he is being made to pay for it | Eoghan Gilmartin

The Spanish PM has been one of few European leaders to stand up to Trump. He now faces coercive diplomacy and an emboldened far right at home The dramatic footage last Thursday of thousands of migrants entering Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta generated an online frenzy among the far right. And the alarmist rhetoric was also evident in the European mainstream, as EU leaders wasted little time attributing the chaotic scenes to Spain’s liberal immigration policies. In a letter organised by Italy and Denmark, and signed by 22 EU heads of government, they appeared to blame the crisis on Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s recent programme to regularise undocumented migrants, which received more than a million applications. They argued that Europe must “[address] all policies that can serve as pull factors”. This reaction displayed a striking lack of solidarity with a fellow EU member state. In an angry response, Sánchez called out the “prejudice, misinformation and attacks” of many of his peers. Yet his defiance, as well as the subsequent attempts by Brussels to display a united front, could not dispel the image of his government’s isolation during an acute e