Spain’s centre-right People’s party suffered the worst defeat in its 30-year history, winning a mere 16.7 per cent of the vote as it was crushed between an insurgent far-right Vox party and the liberal anti-Catalan nationalist Ciudadanos.

Pablo Casado, who took over as PP leader nine months ago and has since steered his party sharply to the right and purged his party lists of associates of his predecessor Mariano Rajoy, admitted to the scale of the disaster. 

“The results were very bad,” Mr Casado said, pinning the blame on the fragmentation of the rightwing electorate and the refusal of the other two parties to agree to local pacts to maximise support.

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