Syniadau :: The Blog: Catalunya

Showing posts with label Catalunya. Show all posts

Bon Nadal

Following Thursday's election victory, I thought it would be good to wish everybody a happy Christmas in Catalan.

Nadolig llawen i chi i gyd.

Support for an independent Catalunya increases

It seems that the most of the media are reporting some sort of backlash against independence from people in Catalunya. So it is worth pointing to the latest round of opinion polling from CEO, published today.

From the graph at the bottom, we can see that support for independence has risen by 7.6 percentage points to 48.7%, the highest figure ever recorded. The margin between Yes and No is clearly in positive territory, at 5.1%, which is the best indication of whether another referendum would be won.

This is the equivalent graphic from the previous round of polling.

I recognize the Catalan Republic

Yes, it's now completely unambiguous. The Catalan Parliament has today voted to lift their previous suspension of the implementation of their declaration of independence. The Catalan Republic is born.

The Parliament of Catalonia constitutes the Catalan Republic, as an independent, sovereign, democratic, social State under the rule of law pic.twitter.com/RW5xck7PYN
— Catalan Government (@catalangov) October 27, 2017

I expect a few countries to recognize Catalunya's independence immediately. But many more will hide behind the sofa waiting to see what happens next. A lot depends on how repressive the Spanish State chooses to be; but more depends on whether the people and institutions of Catalunya are cowed into submission or whether they stand tall.

I couldn't put it better than Vicent Partal, the editor of Vilaweb, did a few days ago:

Later this week, as the rules of the game change in Madrid and Barcelona simultaneously, absolutely everything that we have known so far will formally cease to be the law and, therefore, it will all boil down to a factual struggle. So it will be the people, organized in the streets, who will determine who comes out the winner and who the loser.

In a few days the Catalan Republic and the new ancient Spain without autonomous regions will face off in every playing field and on every decision. The winner will be the one who proves on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday that it is the real, effective government of the Principality of Catalonia. It will only be a matter of time. If our police obey the Generalitat’s orders, we will win. But if Rajoy controls them, we will lose. If banks abide by the law, we will win; but if they seize our money on PP’s orders, we will lose. If local councils take orders from Spanish ministers, we will lose. And if they ignore them, we will win. If our schools stay the course, we will win. Otherwise, we will not. If Catalonia’s MPs can enter the chamber and take their seats, we will win; if not, we will lose. If the Spanish police manages to break into the Palau de la Generalitat to arrest Puigdemont, we will lose. And, if all of us prevent it, then we will win.

That is what has happened in every independence process across the world: there comes a time when a particular article of some law no longer matters; only what the people say does. And, above all, what people do.

Don't be afraid of another vote, Catalunya

One of the attitudes that characterizes those who voted for Brexit in June 2016 is that we should stick to the decision to leave come what may. I have always thought that the UK should reverse Brexit if and when it ever becomes clear that public opinion has changed ... that opinion being expressed either in another referendum or in a general election if the winning party specifically included staying in the EU as part of its manifesto.

In short, we should always respect a democratic decision; but it would be wrong to maintain that a democratic decision, once made, is unchangeable in the future. We should never be afraid to ask people to vote as many times as is necessary to properly reflect their opinions. That is why, for example, I have never been afraid of "little and often" referendums on our National Assembly gaining more powers.

But this isn't really a post about Brexit or Wales. There are more pressing things to concentrate on right now, and the situation in Catalunya is one of them. By now it should be clear to anyone in the world who has taken any interest in the subject that the Spanish Government does not want any discussion or dialogue about Catalan independence. They are determined only to force the Catalans to submit to their will, and independence is something they completely refuse to countenance. This really should come as a no surprise to anyone who has been following events over the last few years; but we need to remember that most of the world hadn't been following events and therefore, probably quite reasonably, had taken the position that the obvious thing for the Spanish and Catalan governments was talk, negotiate and try and reach an agreement.

It has taken these past three weeks for this to become clear to the world, but negotiations can't happen unless both sides are willing to negotiate. One side has shown that it doesn't want this, so each side now has no choice except to continue on their respective paths. But this isn't a disaster for, as it happens, both paths lead to the same place ... at least in the short term.

The Catalan plan was to declare independence—which I expect them to do formally and unambiguously this week—and then hold new elections in Catalunya to establish a constitution for the new republic. It appears that the Spanish plan, agreed by the three biggest Spanish political parties (the PP, PSOE and Cs) is to dissolve the present Catalan Parliament with a view to holding new elections in Catalunya. It doesn't take a Baldrick to realize that this cunning plan to thwart Catalan independence might not be as cunning as the Spanish think it is.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. It really doesn't matter if one side calls this election a constitutory election for the new republic and the other side calls it an ordinary election to elect a replacement autonomous community government. Whether it turns out to be one, the other, or something else, will entirely depend on which way the people of Catalunya vote. If a majority of voters vote for parties that will establish a constitution for the new Catalan state, then those they elect will have enough seats to go ahead and do exactly that. But if the majority vote for parties who intend to carry on as if no declaration of independence had been made, then those they elect will have enough seats to run Catalunya as an autonomous community in Spain and the independence project will be over ... which is exactly what should happen in a democracy. No democrat should want independence for their country unless it is supported at the ballot box.

In other words, I don't think those who want to establish Catalunya as an independent state should have anything to fear from free and fair elections later this year or early next year. It might turn out that pro-independence parties do not get a majority this time. That would neither validate nor invalidate the election on 1 October (no matter what people might claim) it would merely demonstrate that people had changed their minds and no longer wanted what they voted for earlier. It would be just like a vote to reverse Brexit.

But, on the other hand, if the pro-independence candidates again win a majority, the Spanish Government will then have exhausted its democratic options to prevent Catalan independence. They will either have to accept defeat with as much grace as they can muster, or will have to impose direct rule through the use of more physical force. After the way the Spanish State behaved on 1 October, I am sure that support for independence can only have increased.

There is only one problem. I specifically said that those who want an independent Catalunya have nothing to fear from free and fair elections. But most of the world is probably not aware that the Spanish State has a far from unblemished record for holding free and fair elections. The most relevant example is the Basque election of 1 March 2009. Two left-leaning pro-independence parties, Demokrazia 3,000,000 and Askatasuna were banned right in the middle of the election campaign. Left with no opportunity to regroup, this meant that for the first time in some 30 years, Basque nationalists were unable to form a governing coalition, and a Spanish nationalist government was formed instead.

If left to their own devices, I am sure the Spanish State would try something similar in Catalunya now. They would probably argue that any political party or group that wanted something contrary to the Spanish Constitution was seditious in nature and therefore had no right to stand in elections. Spain has shown that it is quite prepared to pervert the law to serve its own purposes with the current imprisonment of the leaders of the ANC and Òmnium. So it is a cast-iron certainty that they would try and do more of the same if they thought they could get away with it.

So what, practically, can be done to stop them getting away with it in the same way as they did in 2009? One thing would be to try get international mediation for any new elections, even though the international community has been reticent to get involved and will probably continue to be. So the best thing would be for pro-independence candidates to form one, and only one, united group. If the group is split into smaller groups, the Spanish State will find it that much easier to pick off one of them. The present Catalan Parliament is includes a cross-party pro-independence group, Junts pel Sí, and then CUP, who refused to join that list even though they also support independence. Imagine a situation where Spain only banned CUP. If the vote were the same as in 2015 the loss of the 10 CUP seats would mean that pro-independence candidates would not have a majority. Put bluntly, the world probably won't bat an eyelid at the suppression of a small party, because their focus will naturally be on the bigger one. But if there is only one pro-independence group, and Spain bans it, the world will no longer be able to maintain the pretence that Spain is behaving as a Western democracy.

Personally, I have no doubt that in a free and fair election, the those wanting independence for Catalunya would again win a clear majority and if so, this time round, neither Spain nor any other country would be able to deny it or cast a shadow of doubt over the result. Bring it on.

Slovenia will recognize an independent Catalunya

In view of the fact that Catalunya specifically looked to Slovenia as a model of how to become independent in the face of strong initial opposition from most Western countries and the EU, I think there's some poetic justice in the government of that country being one of the first to indicate that it will recognize an independent Catalunya.

No need to be afraid. People of Slovenia stand with Catalonia. And I strongly believe that we will be among the first to recognize the new Republic. https://t.co/H9Cnutu2OU
— Jan Škoberne (@Jan_Skoberne) October 18, 2017

Slovenia is not Catalonia. True. Nevertheless, Catalonia has the same right to self determination and consequential proclamation of independence. Terror of Spanish Government only confirms this thesis.
— Jan Škoberne (@Jan_Skoberne) October 18, 2017

Help Catalunya Save Europe

Far from engaging in dialogue and discussion, the Spanish State has decided to aggravate the situation by imprisoning (not after any sort of trial, but by arresting them on suspicion of sedition and then denying them bail) Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, leaders of the main civic movements behind the mass demonstations in support of independence over the past five years, Òmnium and the ANC.

Òmnium have produced this video in English, which I think needs to be shared as widely as possible.

People can also sign the Help Catalonia Save Europe manifesto here.

Despite the picture painted by most media outlets, things are far from hopeless. At present I think the main priority is to show the rest of the world that Spain has absolutely no intention of resolving the matter by dialogue. It clearly thinks that increasingly draconian measures like these imprisonments will force Catalans back into the box in which Spain would like to keep them.

Another thing we can do is show support for Catalunya at this rally in Cardiff on Saturday 28 October, organized by Yes Cymru.

Military Rule in Catalunya?

Along with many others, I've been following events in Catalunya closely, in particular looking to see the reaction from other countries. By far the most disturbing report I've read recently is this from Global Resaech, an organization based in Montréal. They were re-posting this article from wsws.org. These are some quotes from it.

Spain moves toward military rule in Catalonia

With the Spanish media discussing the invocation of Article 116 to impose a state of emergency or state of siege, it is clear that Rajoy is moving rapidly to establish military rule not only in Catalonia, but across all of Spain.

Army sources told El País Wednesday morning that they are preparing to move into Catalonia and crush any opposition from sections of the 17,000-strong Catalan regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, or civilians loyal to the Catalan nationalist parties. Under the attack plan, code-named Cota de Malla (Chain Mail), the army will back police and Guardia Civil operations in Catalonia. It will march significant forces into the region to support two units already there—a motorized infantry battalion in Barcelona and an armored battalion in Sant Climent Sescebes.

This plan has been in preparation for a considerable period of time, according to El País. It was nearly invoked by Rajoy after the August 17 terror attack in Barcelona.

Rajoy is acting with the full support of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and on the basis of clear signals from the Podemos party that it will not oppose moves towards military dictatorship.

PSOE General Secretary Pedro Sánchez, a self-styled “left” within the party, hailed Rajoy’s initial statement. “We agree with the premier’s request for clarification, to clear up the swamp in which Premier Puigdemont has placed Catalan politics”, Sánchez said.

Asked whether this meant that Madrid was activating Article 155, he replied, “Of course, it is obvious that we are activating it.”

Amid rumors of plans for a PP-PSOE government of national unity, Sánchez indicated that the PSOE would work with the PP on plans to rewrite the Spanish Constitution.

I'm not exactly sure how seriously to take this, as the World Socialist Web Site clearly looks at the world from a particular perspective. But I thought I'd post it because it paints perhaps the most frightening picture of what could happen.

Declaring Independence

I originally expected the Catalan Government to declare independence this time last week, within 48 hours of the result being announced on Sunday evening; but I suppose that they reasonably argue that it would take a little longer for the postal votes from abroad to be counted, which is why the declaration is expected to come today.

I think we should expect a formal document, with appropriate lofty rhetoric similar to that of the American declaration of independence from the United Kingdom. But I also expect that, once made, the implementation of independence will be suspended to allow for negotiations.

From what I can gather, the "model" that the Catalans are likely to follow is that of Slovenia. This is from the Australian:

Ramon Tremosa, an MEP for the Catalan European Democratic Party [PDeCAT] which Mr Puigdemont leads, said the region should follow Slovenia’s example: it declared independence then suspended it while it conducted negotiations with what was then the Yugoslav federation. It finally became a fully independent state in 1991 as the rest of Yugoslavia plunged into civil war.

“Nobody can recognise internationally an independence that has not been achieved. We know from the experience of Slovenia and other countries that this experience may take weeks or months,” said Mr Tremosa.

The Australian - 10 October 2017

This prompted me to remind myself of exactly what did happen in Slovenia in 1991. I thought that this quote from the Wiki article on the Ten-Day War was particularly appropriate:

On the diplomatic front, neither the European Community nor the United States were willing to recognize the independence of Slovenia and strongly advocated the continuation of a unified Yugoslavia. The Slovenian government sought international assistance in negotiating a peaceful breakup of Yugoslavia but was rebuffed by Western countries that said they preferred to deal with a single federation rather than numerous small states. However, the Slovenes contended that they had no choice in pushing for independence, given a perceived lack of commitment to democratic values on the part of the Belgrade authorities.

Wikipedia, Ten-Day War

Within a matter of weeks, these same Western Countries had changed their minds. I think what was true in the case of the break up of Yugoslavia sixteen years ago will prove to be equally true in the case of the break up of Spain now.

At the moment, the governments of Western countries have been monolithic in their support for a united Spain. They are, quite understandably, afraid of uncertainty. The one thing that will make them change their minds is, as a more inclusive Harold Macmillan would now say, "Events, dear boys and girls. Events."

Hopefully, the Spanish State won't react to today's expected declaration of independence with more violence, so that there won't be any need for a new Brijuni Agreement to stop the fighting. But a three-month suspension of independence to allow a new Catalan constitution to be written and formal independence recognized by a majority of Western countries on, say, 1 January 2018, looks to me to be the most likely outcome.

Support for Catalunya

I went to two rallies in support of Catalunya yesterday, the first was in Llanelli at lunchtime, and the second in Carmarthen in the evening. Here's a video of the first from Llanelli Online.

A more decisive vote than Brexit

First, I want to express my admiration for those in Catalunya who had the courage to vote in yesterday's referendum, and I particularly want to salute those who were injured by the Guardia Civil and the police forces sent in from outside Catalunya. It was a great shame that the Spanish State acted in the way it did, but thankfully no-one was killed. A small mercy.

In terms of the vote itself, I have no reason to doubt the official figures announced last night and published this morning.

Of votes counted:

Yes ... 2,020,114 ... 90.1%
No ... 176,566 ... 7.8%
Blank ... 45,586 ... 2.0%
Void ... 20,129 ... 0.9%

Electorate ... 5,343,358
Turnout ... 42.3%
Yes as percentage of total electorate ... 37.8%

Source

It is worth noting that the Leave side won the UK's referendum on EU membership with the votes of 37.4% of the total electorate (17,410,742 out of 46,500,001). So if we accept the UK's vote as decisive, we must accept Catalunya's vote as equally decisive, if not more so. In fact the EU, and every one of its member states, has accepted the UK's decision, so it would be inconsistent for them not to accept this democratic decision as well.

But of course the number voting for Catalan independence is in fact somewhat higher that the official figures show, because they only represent the votes that could be counted. The Catalan government estimates that 770,000 intended votes were not counted either because people were physically prevented from voting, or because the votes that had actually been cast were then stolen by the Spanish authorities. Clearly this is a more contentious figure, not least because those who were prevented from voting in one location might well have voted elsewhere; but I think it's reasonable to assume that the stolen ballot boxes would have roughly the same mix of votes as the ones that weren't stolen.

So at the high end, 90% of 770,000 would be another another 693,000 Yes votes, or more than 2.7m in total representing some 50.5% of the total electorate. At the low end, if the figure only represents those who could have voted, then 38% of 770,000 would be another 293,000 Yes votes, or about 2.3m in total representing some 43.0% of the total electorate. The real number of missing Yes votes would be somewhere between the two.

One of the things I've heard and read repeatedly in the media is the claim that support for Catalan independence has fallen over the last few years. These voting figures don't bear this out. In the consultatory referendum of 2014, the Yes/Yes vote (in favour of Catalunya becoming a state, and for it to be an independent state) was 1,861,753.

I have no doubt that when the Catalan Parliament next meets, in the next day or two, it will declare Catalunya to be an independent state.

Update - 23:00, 8 October 2017

With the postal votes now counted, the final referendum result is:

Of votes counted:

Yes ... 2,044,038 ... 92.0%
No ... 177,547 ... 8.0%
Blank ... 44,913 ... 2.0%
Void ... 19,719 ... 0.9%

Electorate ... 5,313,564
Turnout ... 43.0%
Yes as percentage of total electorate ... 38.5%

Source

A Catalogue of Repression in Catalunya

For any who are interested, this article by Dick Nichols provides a fairly comprehensive report of what the Spanish government is trying to do to prevent the independence referendum in Catalunya on 1 October, now less than a week away.

Five Things to Remember

I've been following the independence movement in Catalunya since 2009. My first post is here, and somehow I've managed to write another 60 posts on the subject since then.

Of course I'd be very flattered if anyone were to read them all, but there's a much more succinct way of understanding the situation. I've taken the liberty of reproducing this post by Vicent Partal, editor of VilaWeb, in full, because I think it gives a very good overview of the situation from the perspective of someone who supports independence for Catalunya.

Five Things to Remember

Given the transcendent nature of this moment, we thought it would be a good time to summarize how we arrived at this point and to explain the special nature of the decision that Catalan Parliament took yesterday.

1. Spain broke its own rules when the Constitutional Court nullified the 2006 statute of Autonomy

The origins of all that that we have experienced over the last several years can be found in the Spanish Constitutional Court’s decision to strike down key elements of the 2006 Catalan statute of autonomy. Today it is widely recognized that this amounted to a de facto coup against the constitution that broke the judicial balance established at the end of the Francoist era. The relation of power between Spanish centralism and the Catalan Autnomist Government was based on the so-called “two keys”. Should a Catalan desire to alter its regime of autonomy arise, Madrid held the “first key” of being able to demand that the new law pass through Madrid’s legal filters where it would be subject to alteration. Catalonia’s “second key” was the right, should changes be made in Madrid, to reject the altered statute through a referendum. The process was clear, transparent and balanced. One key furnished guarantees to Spain, the other to Catalonia. Each side had a voice in the process. However, the forced entry into the process of a “third key” that had never existed and that was invented by the Popular Party destroyed this constitutional balance and broke the existing conditions of coexistence. The responsibility for bringing us to where we are today lies squarely with the Spanish state which, through its unilateral actions, abolished the pact forged in the transition to democracy.

2. Spain has refused to engage in dialogue with Catalonia about independence or, for that matter, anything else

Catalonia does not have the right to impose secession upon Spain. Nor does Spain have the right to impose unity upon Catalonia. Should a conflict such as the one that is now being played out in the Principality of Catalonia arise, the only solution is negotiation, as the Supreme Court of Canada made clear in its opinion on the now widely celebrated referendum on the question of independence for Quebec.

Such a negotiation could have taken many forms and could have centered on many different aspects of the impasse. After the first September 11th (Catalan National Day) protests in 2012, the Catalan government proposed that the two sides engage in a renewed dialogue about fiscal matters and cultural rights. This proposal was not only rejected, but treated with open disdain. Catalan political forces have appealed on nearly twenty occasions for a negotiated solution to the celebration a referendum designed to clarify the true political will of the Catalan people. As is the case today, the party that has always refused to negotiate in the recent past has been Madrid. The Spanish state has consistently disdained the core democratic principle that disagreements should be resolved through good faith negotiations that respect the democratic expression of all political projects. This consistent pattern of disdain delegitimates the arguments of the Spanish government.

3. The people of Catalonia gave the Parliament of Catalonia a clear democratic mandate for a Proclamation of Independence

In elections held on the 27th of September 2015, the citizens of Catalonia awarded the proponents of a program to pursue a proclamation of independence an absolute majority of the seats in the Catalan Parliament. The fact that this result fell just short of 50% of the popular vote has led the members of the winning coalition to the conclusion that they should seek validate their program through that most democratic of methods: a referendum. It has always been hoped that this referendum would be sanctioned through negotiations with the Spanish state. However, this has been impossible to do. It is precisely this refusal on the part of the Spanish Government to negotiate anything that justifies, and imbues with legal force, the unilateral vote that the Catalan Parliament will hold tomorrow. There is currently no other way that the representatives in Parliament can give voice to the political desires the people of Catalonia.

4. International law provides a legal basis for both self-determination and unilateral secession

The right to self-determination of all peoples is an essential element of international legal doctrine. It is an absolute right that trumps national legislation, as is spelled out in the two 1966 UN conventions on human rights which the Spanish constitution recognizes as the supreme law of the land. The Parliament of Catalonia is thus able to legitimately invoke this general principle as the basis for the referendum. In addition, there is the decision of the International Court of Justice regarding Kosovo that definitively resolved two important matters. The first is that there is no provision in international law that invalidates the unilateral proclamation of independence of a territory. The second is that the principle of the inviolability of borders only applies to conflicts between states and thus cannot in any way be used to impede the secession of a part of a state.

5. Recent international practice has given explicit support to processes of national self-determination thus creating a norm characterized by the acceptance of new states within the international community

A few figures are worth bearing in mind. Since 1991, 53 sub-state entities, like Catalonia, have held referendums on self-determination. Of this total, 27 referendums were carried out in agreement with the states of which the entity seeking self-determination was then part. The other 26 were convened unilaterally. The Spanish state has recognized 26 of the 27 new states constituted in the world since 1991, the majority of which were proclaimed unilaterally. In fact, 7 states that today are part of the European Union were, in 1991, parts of other states and thus in situations quite similar to that of Catalonia today. These 7 European Union member states that were not independent in 1991 (Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic) were all created through unilateral mobilizations, and in 5 of those cases, through the specific modality of a unilateral referendum. All of them are recognized by Spain and are part of the European Union.

While the European Union has no provision spelling out what is to be done in the case of the secession of a part of a member state, there is a consistent practice when it comes to recognizing the results of referendums on self-determination. For example the EU took important decisions in response to the referendums of the Saar (1955), Greenland (1982) and Brexit (2016), and did not block the referendum in Scotland (2014). All of these referendums were held within the territory of the Union. And as we have seen, it accepted as member 7 states born of unilateral processes while also giving support to the practice of self-determination in cases such as that of Kosovo. This, in clear contradiction to Spain’s current posture in regard to Catalonia.

Summing up

If we have come to this point it is basically because of the legitimacy that the Catalan people bestowed on the Parliament of Catalonia in the September 27th, 2015 elections, and also, the legitimacy that the international community has bestowed upon the right of self-determination. But we have also arrived at this point as the result of the persistent delegitmation of the Spanish position, which flies in the face of international rules and practices as well as the provisions of its own constitution.

Now is the moment to take the next step, conscious both of the civic strength built up over the last decade, and the fact that the international community will react as it always has: by resolving a political problem that cannot be wished away through the deployment of legalistic maneuvering.

Unstoppable Democracy

Here are two pictures from the Catalan Parliament yesterday. The first shows one side of the chamber rising to its feet to applaud the vote to hold a binding referendum on independence on 1 October.

From a different angle, the second shows what three of the opposition parties thought about it. They left just before the vote took place.

Walk outs aren't uncommon in politics. And even if the PP, PSC and Cs had all stayed and voted against, it wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the outcome of the vote.

This is the ballot paper, which asks "Do you want Catalunya to be an independent state in the form of a republic?"

So what happens next? The ball is in the Spanish Government's court. Of course they will denounce the vote, call it illegal, and get the Constitutional Court in Madrid to confirm their opinion. That's what they do every time ... and, just as every time before, the Catalan Government will take no notice and go ahead anyway. They have their own mandate from the 2015 election.

The real question is what the Spanish Government will do after that. If they try and arrest any politicians or public officials, they risk inflaming public opinion, resulting in more people being more determined to vote in the referendum. So I doubt that they'll do any more than issue warrants. They dare not attempt to enforce them.

Catalunya's National Day is on 11 September, only a few days away, so we can expect a couple of million people on the streets of Barcelona, most of whom will be carrying flags and banners supporting independence – just as has happened every year for the past five years or more. The only thing that might spoil the party is the very real threat of another terrorist attack.

So my guess is that the Spanish Government will leave it until the day of the vote. A lot will depend on the anticipated turnout. If it looks like being low, they will probably decide it is best to do nothing, and claim that the result is invalid because most people in Catalunya didn't vote. But if it is clear that a majority will vote, they will then either try and stop people voting, or try and seize the ballot boxes after people have voted. A few isolated incidents of disruption are almost certain to happen somewhere, though probably not by people in uniform.

If the disruption is organized and systematic, implemented either by the military or by the Spanish Guardia Civil (the police force in Catalonia, the Mossos d'Esquadra, is answerable to the Catalan authorities) then the Catalan government will declare independence anyway on the basis of their majority in Parliament. I think the Spanish authorities would be well advised not to try this. They are currently telling the media that this referendum is undemocratic, so they will look pretty stupid on the international stage if they are seen to either prevent people from voting or prevent their votes from being counted. Their best bet is to ignore the vote, and hope that the rest of the world ignores it too.

From the perspective of the Catalan Government, therefore, the only thing that will prevent them making a unilateral declaration of independence is if the result of the referendum is No. I don't think there is any political commentator who believes the vote will be anything other than a Yes. There's room for disagreement over the margin of victory and the turnout, but—provided the vote is not systematically disrupted by Spain—the result will be a Yes.

We must therefore prepare ourselves for an inevitable declaration of independence in the first week of October. The EU and the rest of the world will not be able to sit on the fence any longer.

But it really won't matter too much what the rest of the world thinks. The only question is whether Catalunya can operate as an independent state. The most critical institution for Catalunya to function as a independent state is now in place. After a few years of preparation, the new Catalan Tax Agency was set up only last week, so they are now able to collect taxes for themselves. Madrid will not be able to fiscally strangle an independent Catalunya by depriving it of the funds necessary for it to pay its police, teachers and the whole host of other public sector employees necessary for a state to operate.

Spain might try and close its border with Catalunya, but Catalunya will still have a land border with France, and it has its ports and airports. I have no doubt that things will be tough for a while ... but I doubt that it will be any tougher than life will be for people in the UK if and when it leaves the EU.

So what's left for Spain to do? Use their army to invade with troops and tanks? Use their navy to blockade the ports? Use their air force to bomb the airport runways? I'm sure Franco wouldn't have hesitated for a moment, but that was forty years ago, and western Europe is a completely different place today.

"A natural right of any group of people"

I've just come across a very interesting statement from the US Defense Secretary, James Mattis, who was in Erbil yesterday for talks with Masoud Barzani.

Discussing the planned independence referendum for 25th September, Barzani reiterated that the plan is “a solution and not an obstacle”.

“He then briefed Secretary Mattis on the old and modern issues that the people of Kurdistan have had with Baghdad and that no real partnership has ever been accepted by the latter. The President then reassured Secretary Mattis and the accompanying delegation that the referendum would not create any problems for the operations against the terrorists of the Islamic State and that the courage of the Peshmerga forces shall remain unwavering against this brutal common enemy which poses a threat to all of humankind and not only to Iraq and Kurdistan,” reads the press release.

Secretary Mattis stated that he understands the grievances of the people of the Kurdistan Region and also added that such step is a natural right of any group of people.

However, he said the announcement of independence vote last June was unexpected for the government of United States, especially due to the military operations against the terrorists of the Islamic State."

Basnews - 22 August 2017

With the proviso that this is taken from a press release by President Barzani's office, this is a remarkable statement with far-reaching consequences.

Those of us who believe that President Trump is an embarrassment to the world probably have good reason to wonder how seriously we should take any statement from the current American administration; but not every aspect of their foreign policy is bad.

One of the positive changes after Trump came to power, an improvement on Obama's position, was a marked increase in military support—both in terms of equipment and troops—for Kurds in both Iraq and Syria, despite these two groups having very different political ideologies. In simple terms, I think the American administration believed that the Kurds offered the best hope of defeating ISIS, and that this mattered more to them than anything else. They probably didn't think much about the political solutions that would need to be developed after ISIS are defeated. Perhaps it wouldn't be too cynical to point out that the Americans have always been more eager to take military action than work out what to do afterwards.

That explains why Mattis said that the US was taken by surprise by Barzani's announcement in June this year. But the Trump administration have now had a good couple of months to think about it, and I think they have to be commended for standing behind the principle of democracy and self-determination. That's exactly what the world has a right to expect from America.

The big question is whether the US will be consistent. To say that holding a democratic referendum on whether you want to remain part of an existing state is "a natural right of any group of people" means that the US Administration must also respect the result of the Catalan referendum a week later. We should remember that both the Kurdish and Catalan referendums are unilateral referendums which are being held without the consent of the governments of their respective currently-recognized states, Iraq and Spain.

Also, if the US are consistent towards both the Kurds and the Catalans, then it is quite likely that the UK Government will feel obliged to follow suite, as it usually does. The critical thing in the formation of a new state is not the declaration of independence, but whether other countries then recognize you as an independent state. Having the US on your side is a tremendous advantage because of the considerable influence they have over so many other countries.

Will Catalunya vote for independence?

In my opinion the two most significant political events this year are going to be the independence referendums in southern Kurdistan on 25 September and Catalunya on 1 October.

The reason I'm writing this post is because what I've seen in the media about Catalunya is only a part of the truth, and isn't providing us with an accurate picture of the way Catalans are likely to vote. For example, this is what was reported by the BBC yesterday:

How strong is the appetite for secession?

"It is hard to say," says the political scientist [Professor Arias-Maldonado] from Málaga University. "According to polls, secessionists are now around 41% of Catalans - numbers have been going down for some time. Around 49% are against it.

"These data come from the Catalan public polling body. How will the terrorist attack affect this situation? Who knows? But my bet is - not very much and if it does, it will reinforce the unionist side."

BBC - 20 August 2017

To get a more accurate picture, I think it's worth showing a few graphics from the CEO poll itself, which can be downloaded from here:

The first graphic does indeed show 41.1% support independence and 49.4% don't. The graph at the bottom shows that the figures were just about equal a year ago, but in fact the figures haven't really changed all that much in the last three years, fluctuating in the range between 40 and 50%.

The second graphic shows the breakdown by party. Junts pel Sí and CUP supporters almost entirely in favour; the PSC, PP and Cs supporters almost entirely against; and CSQP supporters split (their preferred option is a federal Spain, but that isn't on offer, which explains why they are more evenly divided).

But, as we should all know, even though people will express an opinion in an opinion poll, this doesn't always translate into actual votes at the ballot box. Even with the unusually high turnout in the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014, only 84.6% of the electorate actually voted. So it would have been possible to win that vote if only 42.4% of the total electorate had voted Yes.

According to the CEO poll, the turnout in the Catalan referendum would be a still-respectable 67.5% (roughly equivalent to recent Westminster general elections: 65.1% in 2010, 66.4% in 2015 and 68.8% in 2017) and that Yes would win a very substantial victory by a margin of nearly 25%, as shown in the graphic below:

I should perhaps explain that a "blank vote" is a valid vote for "none of the above" (a number of countries have long had this option, and in my opinion it should be available here too) and a "null vote" is the equivalent of a spoilt ballot paper here.

The reason for the apparent discrepancy is that those who want independence are very much more determined to get out and vote for it that those who don't. Of the supporters of the two parties in favour of independence, only a tiny percentage will abstain (3.1% and 1.9%) but the abstention figures for supporters of the three unionist parties are 39%, 28.8% and 28.3%, as shown in this final graphic:

Now of course, opinions could change between now and the referendum. But it's now less than six weeks away, and I don't think things will change much.

This means that after the referendum things will get very messy, with different people claiming different things. We can be sure that the leaders of the Catalan Government will point to the substantial margin of victory as justification for declaring independence.

We can be equally sure that the Spanish Government will say (as they have said all along) that the vote is illegal and unconstitutional. But I have no doubt that they will also claim that the reason Yes won was because those who abstained did so not because of the level of political apathy common to almost all western democracies, but because of a principled refusal to take part in an illegal and unconstitutional vote. That will be true, but only to a small extent, and we need to understand why that argument is a fallacy.

True, the unionist parties may not recognize the legitimacy of the vote; but the insurmountable problem they face is that a majority of their supporters clearly do recognize the legitimacy of the vote. As things stand at present, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. If a majority of their supporters were to boycott the election, they might well be able to claim that Yes only won because of the low turnout. But if 64.2% of PSC supporters, 55.9% of Cuitadens supporters and 66.1% of PP supporters defy their party leaders and go out to vote in the referendum (even if most of them vote No) then Mariano Rajoy—Prime minister of Spain and leader of the PP—is going to look pretty silly if he claims that the result is not democratic ... two-thirds of his own party supporters in Catalunya will not have agreed with him.

I've no doubt that he'll try it anyway, because the official referendum results won't be broken down by party allegiance. So he'll think that he'll be able to get away with it because people won't understand the underlying maths, and he'll hope that influential world leaders will commit themselves to rejecting the result on the basis of a specious argument before their research assistants get round to doing that maths.

Forewarned is forearmed. Those of us who want to see Catalunya become independent need to make the case that democracy, the will of the people expressed at the ballot box, is more important than the niceties of the Spanish constitution or any political inconvenience that a vote for independence might cause for other countries.

Two upcoming independence referendums

I want to briefly highlight two pieces of political news which will have a very significant influence on independence for Wales and Scotland, because they'll almost certainly be drowned-out by current political events on these islands.

The first is the announcement on Wednesday that there will be a referendum on independence in south Kurdistan on 25 September this year. By south, I mean that part of Kurdistan which is currently part of Iraq, to distinguish it from the western part of Kurdistan currently in Syria, north Kurdistan in Turkey and east Kurdistan in Iran. They will vote Yes.

The second is today's announcement that 1 October this year has been set as the date for the independence referendum in Catalunya. As a parallel, I suppose I could say that by Catalunya I mean the current Spanish Autonomous Community, sometimes called the Principality, as distinguished from the other Catalan countries of Valencia and the Balearic islands which are also in Spain and North Catalunya in France.

The Catalan election in particular will be enormously important as the EU's reaction to the inevitable Yes vote in Catalunya will set a precedent for how the EU will react to similar situations in Europe such as Scotland.

Referendum maths

Referendums are strange things. Today, there was a referendum in Hungary in which the vote was 95% in favour of the proposition presented, but the turnout was only 45%. I don't want to comment on the issue, but simply on the numbers, because it's a good illustration of how the outcome can be manipulated.

Clearly what happened was that those in favour of the proposition turned out to vote, but those against it stayed at home. Because of that, the referendum technically failed because the turnout was less than 50%. But the Hungarian Government won't let that stand in their way.

And why should they? Let's imagine a situation in which those against the proposition had been urged to go out and vote instead of stay at home. The turnout would then have been higher that 50%, and the proposition would have technically passed. That's because it is very unusal for everyone to go out and vote in any referendum or election.

I think we'd regard 85% as an exceptionally high turnout in a western democracy. A 95% majority on a 45% turnout represents 42.75% of the electorate. If the turnout had been 85% (indicating tht 15% were undecided about how to vote, or didn't care about the issue one way or the other) that would leave those opposed to the motion at 42.25% of the electorate, leaving them in a minority.

Why do these numbers matter? Because I reckon we are likely to see almost exactly the same result in the upcoming referendum on Catalan independence.

After several monhs of uncertainty, it now appears that the referendum on Catalan independence is back on track. Only this week, President Carles Puigdemont said, "There will either be a referendum, or there will be a referendum."

When that referendum is held, those who are against independence will not turn out and vote No. They will say that the referendum is illegal and use that as a pretext to encourage people not to vote. At a guess, just as with this Hungarian referendum, some 95% of those who do vote in the Catalan independence referendum will vote Yes, but the turnout will probably be below 50%. The Spanish nationalists will say that this means only 42.75% want independence, hoping that people will believe that 57.25% don't. But that won't be true. It will be to conflate two different groups: those that don't want independence and those who can't decide or don't care about the issue one way or the other.

It's one of the fundamental flaws with referendums. Sometimes it's possible to manipulate them by encouraging non-participation rather than by getting people out to vote.

No one should be sent to prison for their ideas

It's good that Arnaldo Otegi has finally been released from prison. This report in the Irish Times quotes him as saying:

"They say that in Spain there are no political prisoners, but you just have to look at the number of cameras here to see that yes, they do exist.

"I went in as a Basque speaker and I come out as a Basque speaker. I went in as a socialist and I come out a socialist. I went in wanting independence and I come out wanting independence."

Irish Times, 1 March 2016

He also received this support in the form of a tweet from Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos:

La libertad de Otegi es una buena noticia para los demócratas. Nadie debería ir a la cárcel por sus ideas
— Pablo Iglesias (@Pablo_Iglesias_) March 1, 2016

The release of Otegi is good news for democrats.
No one should be sent to prison for their ideas.

What might happen next? There is no doubt that Otegi is the towering figure of the pro-independence left in the Euskal Herria, and he is bound to take a prominent role with EH Bildu in the Basque Parliament elections scheduled for November this year. The only problem he faces is that when he was sentenced for his role in reviving Herri Batasuna after the Spanish State banned it, he was himself banned from public office until 2021.

For the moment, however, the focus lies elsewhere. The Catalans are steadily setting up the institutions necessary for Catalunya to function as as independent state, and Spain itself is in political limbo after the elections of December last year. The Spanish situation will, probably, be clear in a few months ... either because a new government will have been agreed, or because new elections will have been held. Once we know how that situation pans out, the battle lines for November will be that much clearer. But there is little doubt that independence for the Basque Autonomous Community will be on the agenda. As Otegi said recently in a written statement from prison:

"Sooner rather than later we will use the right to self-determination and thus transform ourselves into a new state of Europe."

New York Times, 29 February 2016

Whence those paralyzing tropisms sprout ...

No, I’m not entirely sure what it means either. I did ask, and someone suggested that it must have something to do with Brussels ... because of the sprout, I suppose. It’s a line from an article about Catalunya, and I thought it provided a good enough excuse for another update on what is happening there.

The article in question is by Alfons López Tena, a pro-independence deputy in the previous Catalan parliament, and I found it here in Business Insider. It's worth a read.

In essence what he is saying is that the Spanish state will never give their permission for Catalunya to become independent, and that Catalans are not determined enough to seize it for themselves. I agree with the first assertion, but I don’t think even he quite believes the second. It seems designed to spur Catalans into adopting a more assertive mindset. He included a nice quote from 1820 which is worth repeating:

“Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

Lacon, Chapter CLXXVIII – Charles Caleb Colton

So far as the Catalan Government is concerned, everything is on course. Although Artur Mas left it until the last minute before resigning, he did the right thing in the end. It was a change of personnel rather than a change of direction. The new president, Carles Puigdemont, is going to carry through exactly the same programme to set up the institutions necessary for Catalunya to function as an independent state as before, because that was the whole point of the September election. The Spanish Government will object and the Spanish Constitutional Court will instruct the Catalan Government not to do this, but they’ll just go ahead and do it anyway. The only way Spain could stop them would be to arrest and imprison members of the government, or send in troops and tanks.

So far as the Spanish Government is concerned, everything is still up in the air after the elections of 20 December. Mariano Rajoy remains in charge of a caretaker government while negotiations are progressing to form a new one. Normally, they would have to do this within three months ... but as the clock doesn't technically start ticking until the first vote, and no-one has yet tabled a motion to vote on, the situation could remain in limbo indefinitely. No-one seems to be in much of a hurry to sort things out, and they still have some way to go before they break Belgium's record.

As I’ve mentioned before, the only one of the four main parties that might offer hope for an agreed settlement between Catalunya and Spain is Podemos. They are committed to the Catalans being able to hold a binding referendum on their future, even though they would prefer them to stay part of a constitutionally reformed Spain. As it happens, they re-affirmed that position only yesterday, saying that a referendum was an "indispensable" condition in any agreement with the PSOE to form a left-of-centre government.

Hardly surprisingly, the PSOE responded by announcing that they “will say no to this referendum” and admitted to having received Podemos’ proposal “with perplexity, concern and disappointment”.

The reason for not allowing a referendum is perhaps not immediately obvious. On one level people might think it would be a good idea for Spain, because if they offered the Catalans a suitable “vow” such as full fiscal autonomy of the type enjoyed by the four Basque provinces, they might just vote No to independence. But there are two reasons why Spain can’t realistically do this: first, they can’t afford to lose Catalunya as a cash cow; and, more importantly, if they allowed Catalunya a referendum it would set a precedent for all the other autonomous communities to be able to do the same. Asymmetric devolution is not in Spain’s DNA, it has to be coffee for all.

The result would be that the three Basque provinces in the autonomous community would get out straight away; the only thing that might possibly delay them is trying to get a majority in the fourth province, Nafarroa, to break away with them. If Catalunya voted for independence it is very likely that the Balearic Islands would follow, because they suffer the same sort of fiscal outflow as Catalunya does and have recently seen the Spanish state take draconian steps against the language. Perhaps they would join the new Catalan Republic, or perhaps they might set up a Catalan Confederation which Valencia and North Catalunya (in France) could join in due course. Galicia might also vote for independence, or perhaps for some confederal relationship with Portugal, with whom they share a very similar language.

In short, if the Spanish state opens the door for one nation to vote on independence, there would be nothing to stop at least five more autonomous communities voting to leave too.

Which gets us back to what I’ve said since the election last September. There will not now be an agreed, binding referendum on Catalan independence. The time for that has passed. Instead, in 18 months or so, the Catalan Government will organize a vote to approve the constitution for a Catalan Republic (one draft was published last year, but there are other versions and the final document needs to be worked up by consensus with input from wider civic society) and the Catalan Parliament will then unilaterally declare independence on that basis.

In tribute to Artur Mas

There were times during the past week when I really thought the Catalan independence process had come off the rails. The language with which CUP was being criticized for maintaining its decision not to support Artur Mas as President of the Catalan government was vicious; a ploy which seemed to me to be primarily designed to make it clear to the electorate that CUP, and CUP alone, were to "blame" for them having to go yet again to the polls in early March. All the rhetoric was about new elections. Yet elections only made any sort of sense if those in favour of independence were confident that they would at least retain, if not enhance, their majority. But there was no evidence that they would, that's why I hoped that an agreement would be reached.

Now that things have been resolved, I don't really want to point any fingers of blame. But I think it might be helpful to look at things from the point of view of the players involved.

For CUP the situation was always clear. If they had been prepared to see Artur Mas as President, then they would almost certainly have joined with CDC and ERC in the Junts pel Sí coalition in order to fight the September elections. One of the reasons why they did so well in that election (increasing their representation from 3 to 10 seats) was surely because a good part of the pro-independence electorate shared their point of view. How could they be expected to abandon the main policy plank on which they had won those seats? Yet they were put under tremendous pressure to do just that.

To their credit, they did consider it. They went to their activists, more than three thousand of them, and debated the matter democratically. Narrowing down the options one by one, they eventually ended up with an exact tie between those who could hold their noses and accept Mas as President and those who couldn't. One more vote, and Artur Mas would have made it.

Because things were still unresolved after the meeting of 27 December, the matter was referred to a smaller executive committee, who decided against endorsing Mas as President by a margin of 36 to 30 (with 2 abstentions). Following that decision the leader of their parliamentary group, Antonio Baños, resigned, saying that achieving independence was more important than anything else. I have a good deal of respect for that viewpoint. I think that if any blame can be attached to CUP, it was that they didn't take advantage of the exactly even split among their membership to modify their position. They could perhaps have allowed their 10 MPs a free vote. But even that might not have helped; 5 votes for and 5 against would still not have been enough to get Mas elected.

For Junts pel Sí the situation was, quite obviously, all CUP's fault. How could any reasonable party with only 10 MPs hold a coalition of 62 MPs to ransom? Surely they should just give up their demands and let the majority have their way. But that was a rather blinkered way of looking at things. The reality was that Junts pel Sí, even though it was the largest party, was not a majority in a parliament of 135 MPs; and it wasn't just CUP who didn't want Artur Mas as President, but every other party too ... it's just that they had different reasons for not wanting him. For the PP, PSOE and Ciutadans, Artur Mas was the arch-demagogue who was threatening to break up Spain; but for CUP, wanting independence was Artur Mas's only positive feature, their problem with him was that he was right-of-centre, and therefore pro-austerity, and that his party was tainted with corruption.

What made the situation worse was that, even though all this was obvious from the moment the results of the election on 27 September were announced, nobody showed any inclination to sort the problem out. Instead, everyone just put the problem on the back burner for two months in order to concentrate on the Spanish election of 20 December, hoping that the result of that election would help clarify what to do. As it happened, it didn't clarify anything; but two months of inactivity allowed the positions of both sides to gradually harden, and with the loss of any flexibility to come up with a clever solution it became an "all or nothing" confrontation.

Despite what they might say, I would say that Junts pel Sí never really offered any sort of compromise to CUP. But there are understandable reasons for this. Junts pel Sí was a coalition put together solely to fight the September election as a plebiscite on independence. The main political partners were CDC and ERC, who agreed to split the list between them on 60:40 basis with Artur Mas as President (there were other minor parties and civic groups involved too) but in every regard other than their commitment to independence CDC and ERC are fierce rivals. For example, they fought the Spanish election of 20 December as separate parties.

For ERC the temptation to want to "revisit" the Junts pel Sí agreement would have been huge. CUP would certainly have accepted the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, as a more acceptable President than Artur Mas. Also it would be easy to justify the switch on the basis that Catalan public opinion has clearly swung to the left since the Junts pel Sí coalition was put together. As evidence for this, ERC increased their number of seats in the Spanish parliament from 3 to 9 in the December election, while CDC fell from 10 to 8. But the poll was topped, with almost a quarter of the vote, by En Comú Podem (Podemos, the Greens and the EUiA) who won 12 seats. Even the PSC-PSOE got a greater share of the vote than Artur Mas's party.

I think Oriol Junqueras deserves enormous credit for resisting this temptation. He and ERC never wavered from their position of sticking to the Junts pel Sí coalition agreement. But there is a good pragmatic reason for not wanting to upset the relationship between ERC and CDC. Between them, they have to govern Catalunya for the next eighteen months or so during the transition to independence; something that will not be easy given their political differences. Any breakdown of trust between them could make Catalunya ungovernable, and breaking the agreement would be seen as a breach of trust. Additionally, Junqueras isn't doing this for entirely altruistic reasons, it will probably make ERC the front runners for the first elections in an independent Catalunya in 2017.

For CDC the problem was that there was no obvious alternative from within the party to Artur Mas, and no real incentive to look for one. They have had more than enough heartache splitting from their long-standing partners UDC over the issue of independence.

So, in the end, it all came down to one person: Artur Mas himself. The events of the last few days have given us some pointers as to what was going on in his head.

For me, the obvious solution was to have accepted that he could not have the lead position in steering Catalunya to independence, but that he could have a lead position. Immediately after the September election, CUP proposed a "corale presidency" that would include Mas alongside one or two others. That wasn't technically possible because the parliament is legally required to choose one head of government, but it could have been done either on a rotating basis or with a "figurehead" president and two or three vice-presidents who actually wielded the political power.

But that clearly wasn't acceptable to him. It seems that he wanted to be the one and only President or nothing. I can't blame him for that. It's a matter of individual temperament and personality. However I will say that it was very big of him to stand down in the end. He deserves huge credit for doing so ... and all the more so because he, personally, has paid the biggest price.