A left government in Madrid would shake the whole neoliberal structure of the EU

Europe’s rulers face two great challenges in June. Just days after the UK is due to vote in the EU referendum Spain will be going to the polls. This could result in the greatest upset in European politics in a generation or more.

Unidos Podemos (United We Can), a coalition of Podemos and the United Left, an alliance centred on the Communist Party, to looks set to overtake the centre-left Socialist Party, the PSOE.

So much confidence has this generated on the left that the parties are setting their sights even higher than this and are aiming at overtaking the right wing Popular Party, which came first in December’s indecisive general election but on a historic low of just 26%.

In that contest the left suffered from being divided. The new-comers Podemos and the United Left, the established party to the left of social democracy had been unable to reach agreement and ran separately. The smaller of the two parties the united left was punished by Spain’s electoral system and despite getting nearly nearly a million votes won only two seats in the lower house of parliament. Their votes were effectively wasted, votes the left need if they are to be able to form a government for change.

This is a massive crisis for the PSOE who would then have to negotiate with Unidos Podemos from a position of weakness.

Following the last election they preferred to negotiate with the new party of the right, Ciudadanos, a tactic which has seemingly backfired.

Such an outcome would be a warning to rightward moving Social Democratic parties across the continent: the fate of Pasok could befall them too.

But more than that a left government in Madrid would shake the whole neoliberal structure of the EU, as Spain, with its 46 -million people will not be as easy to bully as Greece was last year.