SALF did not publish a manifesto ahead of the EU vote. Instead, its policies have been laid out at impromptu rallies in town squares by Pérez, whose stated priorities are the fight against corruption and a clampdown on immigration and crime.
“I want to be the next prime minister of Spain with concrete measures to overhaul my country,” he told POLITICO.
“What I want is to change the democratic system of my country, to make it a top-level country, like England, like the United States.”
Born in Seville, Pérez spent seven years in his twenties living in Leeds in northern England, after volunteering for the centrist Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) as a student. On returning to Spain, he worked as a consultant for the self-styled liberal party Ciudadanos. But during the pandemic, he made his name as a digital crusader by targeting politicians for alleged corruption, linking immigration to crime, and denouncing supposedly false gender violence cases.
“His arguments were close to those of [far-right party] Vox, but his method of communicating was more hooligan-like,” said Javier Negre, a right-wing journalist ally of Pérez. “He didn’t have much to lose and his objective was to get the attention of those who were fed up with everything.”
According to data specialist Kiko Llaneras, preelection numbers show that more than three-quarters of SALF voters in the EU ballot were under the age of 45. Also, SALF’s male voters outnumbered its female voters by 2-to-1 among its youngest supporters, but by 7-to-1 in the 24-44 bracket.
