Lately, I often meet people outside Spain who praise the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. In Britain, Italy or the US, friends, acquaintances or random people who learn I am Spanish offer admiring words about his positions on Gaza and Iran. It’s understandable.

Sánchez spoke out against Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump earlier and more forcefully than most European leaders did, with a powerful message on international law. And the Spanish leader has been one of the clearest and most effective advocates for immigration in one of the fastest-growing countries in the west.

Most Spaniards back Sanchez’s outspoken positions on Israel-Palestine and his economic case for immigration. So how can it be that his party, the centre-left PSOE, has just lost its fourth regional election in six months and appears headed for defeat in next year’s general election?

The results in Andalucía, the most populous region in Spain and one of the nation’s poorest, are particularly devastating for the socialists, who governed there for almost 40 years. The party’s first prime minister after Franco’s death, Felipe González, is from the regional capital, Seville, and the PSOE’s national successes in the 1980s were deeply rooted in Andalucía. On Sunday, María Jesús Montero, a former minister in Sánchez’s government, delivered the party’s worst result in the region since the restoration of democracy in Spain, securing just........

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