Defend Catalunya

If I were a Catalan, I would vote against independence for all the same reasons I have set out previously for opposing Scottish independence.  But, for all those same reasons, the Catalans had a basic democratic right to hold a vote on the issue that socialists should uphold.  And they should uphold that right against the attempts of the Spanish state to prevent it.  The methods used by the Spanish state are more like a throwback to the era of Franco, and are likely to encourage even more Catalans, into the arms of the separatists.

Socialists should demand that the Spanish state stop its intimidation, and we should also demand that the EU uphold its own bourgeois democratic norms in that regard.  If the Catalans vote for independence then they should be free to implement that decision.  Of course, that does not mean that socialists in Catalunya should themselves take ownership of that divisive decision, any more than socialists in Britain should take ownership of the reactionary vote for Brexit.  We oppose any attempt to prevent the implementation of such decisions by force, but that does not mean that we deny ourselves the basic democratic right to disagree with the decisions that have been made, and to campaign vigorously for them to be overturned, any less than we would do that when an election gives a result that we did not want.

The EU has a significant opportunity here.  EU observers were apparently shocked at what they saw being meted out by the Spanish state.  They should also be shocked at the activities of some other EU member states in Hungary, and elsewhere.  Its time for EU politicians to step up to the plate and put into practice the fine words that stand behind the EU's constitution, and that are supposed to be upheld by the European Court of Justice.

If the EU acted as a real state then issues such as Catalan independence or Scottish independence would be trivial.  They would be reduced to mere administrative issues, of drawing theoretical lines on borders of internal EU states on a map, in much the same way that periodically local government reviews in Britain draw the lines for each Metropolitan, City, and County area in different locations.  The EU should respond to this upsurge in separatism and nationalism, by showing that what is actually required is greater integration of the EU itself, which can provide a peaceful and democratic resolution to these local disputes.  After all, neither the Scots, the Northern Irish, the Gibraltarians, nor the Catalans want to separate themselves from the EU itself!