In Ceuta is being fought "the battle for the future of our civilization": the ultra argument on social media

LondonCeuta and the border crisis unleashed on Thursday in the autonomous city has been used on social media as fuel to spread the xenophobia of the global far-right. X, Telegram, Facebook and other platforms have, in a few hours, turned the Spanish enclave in North Africa into a symbol of the reactionary international; a way to politically sweep at home and favor the most dehumanizing proposals in the face of North-South inequalities.

The message disseminated on X by the leader of the UK Reform Party, Nigel Farage, is exemplary, in which he has associated the regularization of immigrants recently carried out by the Spanish government with the scenes seen on El Tarajal beach. "At the beginning of the year, Spain granted amnesty to half a million people who had entered the country illegally – it says. The messages from Spain were clear. You know: come in and you will be allowed to stay." He then added: "Believe me, unless we get a Reform Party government, many of these young people, many of them dangerous, will go to Calais and will also come to our country. This is a battle for the future of our civilization."

One million people have read Farage's message, who has issued a second statement this Friday midday in support of his friends Giorgia Meloni and Jordan Bardella, "who have said they will take extraordinary measures to stop this."

Spain's southern border, and that of the Union, has become the stage used to fuel the idea of a Europe threatened by the "invasion" that Farage, but also Santiago Abascal, have spoken of. The head of Vox already commented in the same terms on the similar "episode that took place in 2021. The PP has also used the word invasion.

An invasion to which, Abascal has said", should be answered in the following way: "Getting them all out now! With whatever means necessary. And if the government doesn't do it, Spaniards alone will have to do it". A proclamation that is very reminiscent of the incitement to hunt North African immigrants from last summer in Torre Pacheco. As usual, for Abascal, "Pedro Sánchez is the biggest culprit for everything we are suffering and will suffer as Spaniards. And, therefore, the national emergency caused by this invasion can only be resolved, before he steals the elections, by removing the traitor and the mafioso and making him sit on the defendant's bench."

The White House fans the flames

If Farage has swept the house, the White House has also done so. In statements to the Fox channel this Friday, President Donald Trump assured that what happened in Ceuta could also happen in the United States. "This will be us in three years if the wrong side wins," referring to the viral images and a possible victory for the Democrats in the 2028 presidential election: "If the Democrats win, you will not live a very good life," he added.

Hours earlier, presidential spokeswoman Anna Kelly attributed the situation in Ceuta to Spain's "far-left globalist policies." "President Trump has long been warning Europe about the consequences of continuing to apply far-left globalist policies, such as facilitating mass immigration. Spain and other countries that have adopted this destructive philosophy should rectify immediately or risk their own disappearance," she declared, according to the Efe agency.

For his part, the president of the French National Rally, Jordan Bardella, has also joined the fray. Bardella, like Farage or Abascal, associated regularization with having opened Europe's doors to "all the dangers" coming from outside. The underlying idea is that integration policies create a pull effect and turn a country into a bridgehead for immigrants on the continent. In April, in Porto, at an event of Patriots for Europe – the third largest group in the European Parliament – Bardella already said that the "massive regularization" of immigrants in Spain had "considerable consequences for the broader balance of Spanish society, but also for neighboring countries".

Bardella assured that if his party governs from next year, it would reintroduce border controls and try to limit "Europe's free movement area to EU citizens." In practice, this would mean a profound revision of the Schengen treaty.

Elon Musk, owner of X, has also not missed the opportunity to chime in, in this case with a brief comment: "Wow, the situation in Spain looks crazy!", words accompanied by images from the movie World WarZ, starring Brad Pitt, in a scene where a legion of zombies try to jump the wall surrounding the old city of Jerusalem.

In Italy, the crisis has also been used by radical right-wing leaders. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated on X that the images from Ceuta "demonstrate that uncontrolled illegal immigration is a concrete threat to the security of Europe's borders." Matteo Salvini, leader of the League and deputy prime minister, has turned the entry of immigrants into the former Spanish colony in North Africa into an argument against European reception policies and in favor of strengthening border controls.

The case of Ceuta ultimately shows how politics – in this case, migration policy – works in the digital age. A local crisis becomes in a few hours a shared cause for an international network of politicians, influencers, and platforms. The far-right stirs up all imaginable and unimaginable scarecrows, making social networks not only vehicles for disseminating reality but spaces where it is modified and radicalized.