An internal poll commissioned by the PP to measure the political impact of the so-called “national priority”, and reported by El País, would detect support for that concept even among socialist voters. According to that information, around 40% of PSOE voters would support that approach included in the government agreements signed by PP and Vox in Aragon and Extremadura.
Always according to the information advanced by El País, the study would have been promoted by Génova to evaluate if that measure generates political costs for the PP or, on the contrary, connects with a broader sensitivity. Since it is an internal poll not publicly disseminated with an accessible technical sheet, what is known so far comes from that journalistic information.
The debate revolves around the so-called “national priority”, a formula that, according to Vox, implies that Spaniards have preference for access to certain public aid and protected housing. The publication of the poll adds a new political dimension to a measure that had already generated legal and social controversy.
Vox against the bishops
That debate has also extended to the open clash between Vox and several bishops over that concept. The national spokesperson for Vox, José Antonio Fúster, urged bishops this Monday who reject "national priority" to go with a cassock to the Molenbeek neighborhood, in Brussels, while claiming Christian culture as a symbol of Spanish identity.
The controversy arrives after days of public standoff between the party of Santiago Abascal and representatives of the Church over the agreements reached in Aragon and Extremadura. Different bishops had called for empathy towards immigrants and rejected the idea of national priority, while Vox has defended that it is about prioritizing Spaniards in access to certain public resources.
In a press conference, Fúster maintained that his criticisms are not directed at the Church as a whole, but at "certain bishops," and described as "outlandish" the "lack of protection of borders, favoring the pull effect and the advance of the Islamization process of Spain and Europe." In that context, he framed his challenge to those bishops to "put on a cassock and go into Molenbeek."