A senior member of the Spanish populist party VOX announced the party will pursue a national referendum on immigration under the Spanish constitution and demanded the country’s Interior Minister resign.

Jorge Buxadé, a vice president of VOX and a member of the European Parliament (MEP), announced over the weekend during a meeting in the Spanish North African exclave of Ceuta that the party would look to initiate a referendum under article 92 of the Spanish constitution on the topic of immigration.

“Spaniards [must] say what is the model of immigration control we want,” Buxadé said and called for the resignation of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, highlighting his management of the incident in Melilla earlier this year in which at least 37 people died trying to storm the fence of the North African exclave, 20 Minutos reports.

The VOX MEP went on to add that “a consultation be convened with the Spaniards on what is the model of immigration control that we want,” and said, “the elites already know that they want illegal, massive and uncontrolled [immigration].”

“The solution is to reform the Civil Code in matters of nationality to prevent its acquisition to all those who do not prove their conformity with our way of life and who do not renounce theirs,” Buxadé said and went on to state the links between illegal immigration and crime across Europe.

“This illegal immigration then turns into violence, insecurity and crimes in the streets of Stockholm, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona or Ceuta and in recent days we have stabbings of young people in Tarragona and Seville, massive brawls in the Gran Vía of Valencia, in Lavapiés … All of Spain is already devoured by insecurity and violence,” he said.

Buxadé also defended the Civil Guard, which has been criticised for its handling of the Melilla incident, saying his party fully supports the Civil Guard in their duty to protect the borders of Spain.

“We always defend the actions of the Civil Guard, which acts without sufficient personal or material means and, in addition, suffers subsequent media harassment because there are always media that blame it [for when things go wrong, despite their being underfunded and undermanned],” he said.

According to VOX, the number of people entering Ceuta this year has increased by 52 per cent compared to last.

VOX is not the first in Europe to propose a referendum on immigration. During her campaign to become French president, French populist Marine Le Pen made a similar proposal to greatly overhaul the French immigration system.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.