What can we expect in the next week or so in
Catalonia?
A week, they say, is a long time in politics - indeed
it is! But what can you say about a
country (Spain) where politics seems like a long dead art? About a president (Rajoy) who seems to have
no understanding about the political duties of his office? About a division of powers of the three legs
of constitutional democracy that have been blended together by the governing
political party so that realistic separation does not exist?
Well, say what you like - but the reality of the
responses is going to dictate the lives and livelihoods of a whole generation
of people living in the country of Catalonia.
A declaration of independ
ence has been signed by the
requisite Catalan politicians in the parliament, but its declaration has been
delayed for a month to allow negotiations to proceed with the Spanish
government. A delay which was asked for
by the EU as a sign of good will towards the Spanish government so that they
were not forced into precipitate action.
And the response of the Spanish government? A complete refusal to countenance any form of
negotiation that might involve a realistic consideration of another and binding
referendum about the independence of Catalonia.
Government leaders in Madrid have gone out of their way to say that all
offers of outside mediation will be rejected because this is a Spanish internal
problem. No discussions will take place
about the break up of Spain. No! No!
No!
The Catalan government has been given until Monday to
clarify if it has actually declared UDI and, if they have not come back to
heel by Thursday, then Section 155 of the Constitution will be invoked which takes away
power from the Catalan parliament and allows Madrid to take over the running of
the region.
The Socialist (!) party of Spain has said that if UDI
is declared then they will support the right wing minority government led (!)
by Rajoy in their actions against Catalonia.
The vacuous leader of the Socialist (!) party has suggested that there
could be negotiations about changing the constitution and the relationship of
the autonomous regions to start in six months time - as long as the Catalan
government return to what the corrupt band of chancers who make up PP and PSOE
call ‘the rule of law’.
For this to work, you would have to believe that the
political group (PP) that engineered the rejection of a new relationship
between Catalonia and the Central Spanish government and which was passed by
both houses of parliament in Madrid and Barcelona, would suddenly change its
mind and become reasonable. PP was directly responsible for the rejection
of something that could have assuaged Catalan resentment. Nothing in the behaviour of PP over the last
seven years since the rejection of an agreed settlement in 2010 suggests that
they can be trusted in the slightest to negotiate with anything approaching
honesty.
The action and inaction of PSOE and Cs have been
equally disgraceful, and I treat anything they say with contempt.
So we have something of an impasse. Neither side believes the other. No common ground is clear. No mediation is in the offing. Disaster beckons.
The tensions in the Catalan parliament are clear. There are those representatives who want an
immediate declaration of UDI. They say
that the response of the Spanish government shows that they cannot be
trusted. They are going to get nothing
by offering delay for negotiation because the Spanish government has clearly
stated that they are not interested.
Indeed the Spanish government has noted the cracks in
the Catalan government and they may well have thought that all they have to do
is wait and the cracks will become open division. Which they will exploit.
If UDI is declared then Spain will invoke Article
155. Rule from Madrid. This will infuriate the majority of the
population of Catalonia. There will be
Civil Unrest. Perhaps Rajoy doesn’t
care. He gains little electoral
positivity from the poor showing of his corrupt party in Catalonia. He can afford to ignore any loss of votes for
his party because his status will increase elsewhere in Spain as some voters
see a long delayed retribution for what they call the arrogance of Catalans and their open
display of rejection of the law.
What else can this Titan of political inactivity
do? He could rule from Madrid. As civil unrest increases and perhaps there
are a few deaths he could then send in the army to, what was it the Russians
used to say to justify their invasions of rebellious satellite countries? Oh
yes, “We sent the army in at the request of the legitimate authorities in [insert name of country] to preserve law,
order, liberty and democracy!”
They could then outlaw all the political parties that
voted for UDI and signed the declaration.
They could fine, imprison and ban from political life those leaders who
‘misled’ the population. They could then
force elections in Catalonia allowing only the political parties that they
deemed ‘legal’ to take part.
I am not Catalan, but from my observations of the
people in this country, I do not think for a moment that they would stand by
and allow this to happen.
An unsettled country would see institutions and
businesses, including the sluttish banks of course, flee to Spain to be
‘safer’. The financial situation of
Catalonia would suffer, whether or not UDI was declared. People would suffer.
But remember that Madrid is in the middle of the
country. It might be the capital of
Spain, but there is no real geographical reason why the capital of Spain is
where it is. It is historical. And Madrid has artificially bolstered the
reputation and importance of the capital at the expense of other more
attractive cities. Like Brasilia, you
have a ‘constructed’ capital city. Barcelona
however is on the sea, it has a port, it also has a major airport, and it is also
on the main land route out of Spain through Catalonia and into France, part of
the vastly important Mediterranean Corridor.
Spain will never want to lose that route, as it would cost it billions
that it can't afford to construct another way through the Pyrenees.
Let me give you an example of how Madrid has
engineered things. When my postal vote
for Brexit was lost, my replacement ballot was so late in getting to me that I
had to go to the post office and get a special delivery of my “NO” vote against
the lunacy of Brexit. It cost a
lot. I was told by the post office
people in Castelldefels that my letter would first go to Barcelona, and then it
would be flown to Madrid and then be flown on to London and then to
Cardiff. Why? Barcelona has a major international airport
with direct flights to London and the UK.
But no, in order to bloat the services for Madrid and to make it appear
more important than it actually is, all the mail was diverted on an extra,
irrelevant leg of a pointless journey.
That story is not just about an important letter, but it is also about
an attitude in Spain and Madrid.
Try as I might, I can only see disaster on the
horizon. An inflexible minority
right-wing government has too much to lose by being ‘reasonable’, so I suspect
that they will play true to form and think only of themselves and their
party. They have no concern for
Catalonia and they will delight in using an iron fist in an armoured glove to
crush what they see as a real threat to their comfortable corruption.
If Catalonia declares UDI then they will have to be in it for the long run, accept economic impoverishment and oppression and discover
that it might be time to re-read some of the books that George Orwell
wrote. Those books have been considered
as a literature of history, but they may now come to be considered as a guide
to current affairs.
What a sad time it is that might be true!
