The ‘invading’ migrant in Ceuta has sent the sovereignists into a frenzy, from MAGA supporters to Europeans and even Russia, which has a certain expertise in this area

We still do not know who persuaded nearly sixty thousand Moroccans, mainly young people, to set off en masse for Ceuta, but we do know that it is impossible to reach the Schengen area from the Spanish exclave without passing through a border control; that illegal immigrants have no way of entering Spain from Ceuta; that the vast majority of the ‘invaders’ have returned to Morocco; and that those who have not returned either hope to do so – because there is not even enough to eat in Ceuta – or have drowned – nearly a hundred people. We also know that the panic generated by this crisis was orchestrated by a campaign of exploitation ranging from MAGA to Russia and including Europe’s far-right parties – and that ignorance did the rest, starting with the invocation of the Schengen Agreement – and its suspension – for territories, such as Ceuta, where Schengen does not apply.

The MAGA movement has come to the fore, as is often the case, because it is now split into two factions: the MAGA supporters who oppose any foreign intervention, any aid to allies and any confrontation with adversaries, and the MAGA supporters who, on the other hand, back Israel and (to some extent) Ukraine, and therefore American interventionism. This feud is causing damage beyond the Trumpian sphere, as it influences broader foreign policy decisions, whilst also creating significant internal friction. The section of the MAGA movement opposed to any intervention has, in fact, stated that it will not “follow the false outrage of Fox News and the Republican Party” on the issue of Ceuta and has published a screenshot of a congressional text giving the green light to the transfer of Spanish territories (the exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla) to Morocco.

It was MP Thomas Massie, an isolationist Republican who lost his battle against Donald Trump in the primaries and will lose his seat in January, who published it, claiming he was the only one not to vote for this bill, and emphasising: everyone else voted for it, “but now they’re shocked by the invasion”. In reality, Massie too engaged in manipulation – certain hallmarks of the MAGA movement remain – because the screenshot refers to a report by a congressional committee and not to the State Department funding bill that Massie voted against, in which there is no mention of the Spanish exclaves. But this example is useful for understanding the propaganda fervour that has gripped the sovereigntist movements, whilst Fox claimed that Ceuta is in northern Spain rather than North Africa, and half the Trump administration reposted the Fox segment on the alleged invasion of ‘northern Spain’, saying: ‘This is what happens when the liberal elites are in power.’

Immigration is going to our heads, Europe is ‘invaded’ even further – we’ve seen this before, writes Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic – when the Belarusian government ‘imported truckloads of migrants from the Middle East and dumped them on the Polish border’ or when, in 2015, the destruction of Syria by Russia – an ally of the then Assad regime – led to the mass arrival of Syrian refugees, particularly in Germany: “Social media posts featuring migrants, some amplified by Russia – which had destroyed Syria – played a major role in the Brexit campaign and the rise of the far right in Germany,” writes Applebaum. She concludes: “We have discovered that it is harder to stem the tide of anger” from these propagandists “than to stop the migrants themselves”.