Not sure about that. Charles Piugdemont, the Catalan President, is a right wing populist who called a referendum many of his own people did not want - a referendum without legitimacy, which he knew was going to be both divisive and illegal. There is no doubt, however, that the Spanish government have handled the whole thing appallingly - in effect, they have played right into the hands of the nationalists. And in my opinion it is never a good idea to do that, because nationalism is almost always a malignant backward looking phenomenon. As for who has the moral high ground between Rajoy and Puigdemont, I'd be inclined to say, "a plague on both your houses".
Paul Mason does like to get ahead of himself doesn't he. This post is meant to get clickbait of "different treatment for different countries" reponseswhich it of course does:
Both the main parties have shifted and become much more idealised. In JC's case it is much more clearly defined but quite how he carries Chuka with him, I do not know. Meanwhile the Tories seem rather lost on where they actually want to do. If I were Mrs May, I would jetison Brexit in the morning, and bring the Tories back into the bosom of European Conservatism, which is where the UK Conservative party should be positioning itself. The alternative makes it look rather like UKIP and other disparate parties on the right. What I miss are the good old days of 1997 and the arrival of New Labour with Alan Milburn, Mo Mowlem, Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, John Prescott, John Smith,
The second one might just be to stop a nationally unpopular separatist party from harassing the rest of Spain into breaking up because of internal Catalan politics. In your opinion, their view is irrelevant. Perhaps they feel like the law should be upheld. What if it was Trump (or any President) breaking the US constitution to support LGBT rights. Would you support him? Your views on the rule of law seem pretty flexible. Anyway, it doesn't matter whether you think a law against independence referendums should exist. It does exist. It wasn't imposed on anyone. It was adopted by referendum in 1978, overwhelmingly supported in Catalonia. It proclaims the country having "indissoluble unity". Puigdemont would be in his rights to try to get the consittuion changed but it's more populist to just hold a referendum and welcome the confrontation. And some people are being taken inby his claims of being the victim. Vin
The Spanish Government were concerned several weeks back about the coverage outside Spain regarding this very issue as they perceived the Catalanists were getting more favourable coverage than the Spanish Government. The Catalanists have certainly milked the issue.
I had read lots of comments warbling about how Spain is different than the other problems in Europe. Where the rest of Europe's problem is a fascist nazi one yet Spain had no problem other than an internal disagreement. Then this popped up in one of my feeds:
The unilateral attempt to declare independence was silly. Not as silly as having riot police raid the polling stations, though...they were never going to actually stop the vote by doing so, and now any irregularities in the hastily-thrown-together referendum can be blamed on the chaos caused by the security forces.
I think you should abandon the dark recesses of the web for a while Imps. Forget the nonsense popping into your feeds and try reading some credible sources. Perhaps start with Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' and work forward from there.
What is it with some elements of Conservative politicians? There seems to be absolutely no room for negotiation. With regard to Catalunya, Rajoy refused to give one inch to the idea of a referendum, unless the whole of Spain was allowed a say in the matter. This has been an ongoing issue for many years that culminated in yesterday's very unfortunate scenes. Thatcher refused to sit down with the miners, Sinn Fein, the Argentines. Putin seems like a bullyboy with regard to his neighbours and also in terms of his internal social policy. And of course we have the deep conservatism of the Saudis where the pace of change in certain things such as great liberties to women, gays, critics of the Government is virtually non-existant. It begs the question why anyone would vote for a Conservative party anywhere that is unyielding.
As we saw Spain is very fractured politically. On the right there is Popular Partido that houses all elements of Spanish Conservativism from the centre-right to the last elements of Francoism. It includes Opus Dei. On the left we have PSOE, Podemos, and another very left-wing group. On the centre (rightish) there is Ciudadnos, a party created in Barcelona, opposed to Catalan indendence but is now a moderately big national party. Then throw in the "indendistas" elements in Catalunya, Pais Vasco, and other areas and again they include elements from deep conservatism to very left-wing. Coming up on October 12 is Spain's national day. It will be interesting to see if it observed in Barcelona, here in Mallorca where there are Catalanists, and elsewhere. It will be because people like a day off work, but I suspect there will be big rallies and also counter-rallies.
One way out of the impending chaos would be for the left of centre parties to get together and vote the PP out of office, as united they easily outnumber PP. Please make it happen!! Then they need to get their heads together, create a Government of national unity and offer a branch of peace to Catalunya and start proper negotiations regarding the independence issue.
Imagine if they did give them their referendum and they voted out. Then what? They'd be called absolute fools for allowing it (case in point Cameron, Brexit vote, surely we're staying in, whoops)
Im very pro staying in Europe but i don't call Cameron a fool for allowing the vote, Just the half hearted campaign for staying in.
Some truth in this, but as the Catalan regional government was determined to go ahead with an unconstitutional referendum anyway, the national government had at least 3 options; 1) allow the referendum to go ahead and agree to meet with the Catalan authorities to agree a way forward afterwards. 2) allow the referendum to go ahead but, havimg already seen it ruled unconstitutional by the Spanish courts, resolve to ignore the results. 3) Send in the Guardia Civil (a hated remnant of Franco's old paramilitary police), close down polling stations, arrest Catalan officials, and assault protesters in full view of the world's press. Seems to me Rajoy's government chose the worst of those options.
a lot of people do think he is a fool for placating the right wingers in order to win an election and it was 1 gamble too far. Maybe not necessarily yourself Yeah, it was stupid to go full on police brutality. I was just responding to a question of why not give the Catalans a vote on independence. Would you take the risk that they separated as that would be an even bigger issue for Spain than us and Brexit (and apparantly we're heading for the apocalypse on our shores)
Whats happening in Catalonia and Scotland shows its the right call as far as i'm concerned. Can't see a way that it would have turned out better not holding the vote. as Archers said, what they've done seems by far the worst choice. They've just increased the support for independence.
I don't disagree that what they have done is far worse. I would say its in the same way the right call that we are brexiting then. Give the "people" what they want or don't let them decide at all
