CADIZ, Spain — When a Spanish frigate arrived at this port city late last month, officials agreed to take in 15 African migrants who had been on the humanitarian ship Open Arms and rejected by the Italian government just days before. That was just a fraction of the 107 migrants who had made the perilous voyage.

Last year, by contrast, the Socialist government in Madrid had enthusiastically embraced all 121 migrants that had been rescued from another ship off the coast of Libya, giving them a ceremonial welcome in the port of Valencia even as other European Union countries rejected them.

The reason for the government’s “turnaround,” according to some conservative critics: The meteoric rise of the far-right nationalist party Vox, which took 10% of the vote in last April’s general elections campaigning on a strongly anti-immigration platform. Founded just six years ago, the party this year entered the federal legislature for the first time ever, winning 24 seats in the 350-seat lower house and one seat in the 266-seat Senate.

While still a distinct minority, Vox has had an outsized impact on the Spanish political debate over immigration and other issues. Its leader, Santiago Abascal, has lambasted the government for the “call effect” that last year’s reception of an overloaded rescue vessel had on African migration, claiming it inspired more refugees to try to enter Spain illegally.

The caretaker government in Madrid dispatched a military ship last week to pick up the migrants, all of them Africans, after five EU countries agreed to take them in following a prolonged standoff.

The military ship “should have been sent a lot sooner,” Mr. Abascal said in Congress Thursday, “to capture the Open Arms and bring the ship and its crew back to Spain for prosecution.”

Vox scored another breakthrough when it joined a conservative coalition that now controls the city government of Madrid, the capital. It showed the same tactical flexibility there as a way to magnify its influence.

“We are aware of our political strength in this assembly,” Rocio Monasterio, an architect and president of Vox’s Madrid branch, told El Pais newspaper last month. “Only through alliances with parties that defend the same concept of freedom as ourselves can we prevent the left from entering the institutions.”

A bane for the left

Authorities in Morocco told The Washington Times that local youths were encouraged to set to sail for Spain, at a time when Italy and other favored destinations have cracked down harshly on migrants. As the number of new arrivals multiplied, so did support for Vox.

At a time of deep political uncertainty in Madrid — Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been unable to nail down a new governing coalition four months after April’s general elections — Vox has proven a particular thorn to the leftists. The party joined with other conservative parties to displace the Socialists from their long-held bastion in Andalucia, the region closest to Africa and the one facing the most stress from illegal immigration.

If a government cannot be formed, new elections are set for November, and immigration could once again prove a divisive, hot-button issue.

In a heated congressional debate last week, the far-left Podemos party accused Mr. Sanchez of “seeking votes” by accepting only a token number of immigrants from the Spanish-registered Open Arms and “disowning” the ship’s humanitarian work to gear up for new elections. One leftist lawmaker called him “fascist.”

Vox filed a lawsuit against Open Arms last month as Mr. Sanchez frantically negotiated with other EU governments over taking in the other migrants.

“Disguising its acts as rescues, the work of Open Arms makes it an accomplice with international mafias in human trafficking,” said Mr. Abascal, who has demanded the ship’s impoundment and the captain’s arrest.

The drumbeat of criticism on immigration has put the government on the defensive, in sharp contrast to its more welcoming tone just a year ago.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a member of Mr. Sanchez’ Socialists Workers Party, told reporters that “Open Arms is not licensed to conduct rescues or carry so many people on board.” The vessel had only been authorized to transport relief supplies to refugee camps in the Greek island of Lesbos she said, threatening to hit the ship with a $1 million fine.

As in Italy, many voters here appear to be losing patience with humanitarian refugee agencies, who critics say encourage the illegal passage across the Mediterranean and attempt to shame EU governments into accepting the refugees.

“Open Arms seems to stage its dramas off major European countries like Italy or Spain instead of Malta, Cyprus or Tunis, whose ports are just as close to its pick-up zones but where the political impact is less,” said William Ogilvie, a political scientist at the Franciso Marroquin University in Madrid.

Defending European ‘identity’

The ship’s three-week ordeal off Italy received heavy press coverage. Activist U.S. actor Richard Gere boarded the vessel to highlight the plight of the migrants, even as Italy’s hard-line Interior Minister Matteo Salvini adamantly refused to allow them to land.

“Open Arms is not an NGO but an operating base of the extreme left,” declared Mr. Abascal, who accused the organization of “destabilizing” the Italian government and “attacking the European identity.”

The Socialists have tried to make Vox a political pariah and “attacked other center-right parties for doing deals with them,” said Spanish law professor and political analyst Ramon Peralta.

“But Abascal has the government over a barrel on immigration,” he said.

It’s not the only issue on which the upstart party is punching above its weight.

Vox caused another stir in July when its lone senator, Jose Alcaraz, blocked a motion of solidarity with victims of wildfires in the Canary Islands, citing what he said was the bill’s “ideological” content.

The Vox lawmaker objected to the mention of “global warming” as the cause of the fires, calling it “ideological posturing of a determined form of thinking” by the Socialist Party and the leftist party Podemos, which have been negotiating a possible coalition government.

Vox has also become highly active at the local level. Despite a relatively poor showing in last May’s provincial and municipal elections, it has been targeting more traditional conservative parties such at the Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos to incorporate its ideas into governing platforms for Madrid and other major cities where the conservatives are in power in local coalitions.

There has been friction. The head of the PP in Andalucia, Juanma Moreno has resisted Vox’s demands to purge officials who investigate cases of gender violence. Vox leaders said the investigators are practicing a form of radical feminism.

The Vox leader in Andalucia, Franciso Serrano, was forced to step down for criticizing a Supreme Court ruling that upheld stiff jail sentences for a group of men convicted of a gang rape during the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona.

Mr. Abascal struck back. Last week, he demanded that Moroccan and Algerian migrants accused of gang raping a young woman be immediately expelled, with official demands for their trial and sentencing in their home countries.

While still small, the party’s feisty attitude has won it some fans.

The mayor of a small town in Castilla in the heart of Spain said that he supports Vox because it can be counted on to stand for traditional values. “They support improvements for the local church. That’s good enough for me,” the mayor said.

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