Spain Cannot Be Free If It Holds Catalunya In Chains

The decision to establish an independent Catalunya is has the potential to be far more catastrophic than Brexit, or to establish an independent Scotland. Britain will suffer catastrophically in economic terms, if Brexit goes ahead, and an independent Scotland would suffer even more catastrophically, in that regard if it separates from Britain. But, England is not threatening to forcibly prevent Scottish independence if the Scots vote for it, and nor is the EU threatening to forcibly prevent Brexit. Catalunya not only will suffer economic catastrophe by separating from Spain, but the fact that the Spanish state is threatening to use force to prevent, even a legal democratic vote taking place, has imposed direct rule over the region, and logically must then back that up by force, threatens plunging the country into civil war.

For socialists, the primary task is to promote the greatest possible unity of the working-class. A look at the divisions that arose in Scotland, or that have arisen over Brexit indicate the potential for the working-class, even within a given country or region, to be highly divided, when the political discourse is overwhelmed by some particularly single issue. A look at the divisions that are opened up by elections in countries where vertical cleavages dominate the polity, for example, ethnic and religious divisions, illustrates the point. Such a division where a particular country or region is led to feel that it must separate, and where that desire is frustrated by the use of force is almost inevitably going to lead to a heightening of those divisions, and the resort to violence to resolve them.

These divisions have a dynamic of their own. The more, for example, Catalunya is denied the right to even express its will via a democratic process, let alone that its will be suppressed by force, the more Catalans will see that as an expression of oppression, and the more they will see that oppression as their primary concern that drives Catalan workers towards making common cause with Catalan bosses.  That can be seen in Scotland, where the Scottish working class has been divided by the question of nationalism, with a part of it being pulled over to the Tartan Tories of the SNP, who with their traditional middle-class nationalist support, thereby were able to obtain a majority in elections.

It is because socialists seek to build the greatest unity of workers across borders that they must stand out against such a dynamic. It is why they argue that the socialists in Spain, for example, should emphasise the right of Catalunya to separate, whilst socialists in Catalunya should emphasise the importance of remaining within Spain. Socialists could never recommend that the Catalan workers pushed their demands for independence to a point where it led to a civil war with Spain, in which not only would the Spanish and Catalan workers be turned into enemies of each other, but in which thousands of them would be likely to die. The demand for self-determination is merely a bourgeois-democratic right, which can never be placed higher than our ultimate goal, which is the building of a united working-class struggle for socialism.

But, a primary responsibility here lies with the Spanish workers. It is the Spanish state that is the opponent of the implementation of even that basic bourgeois democratic right. Unlike even the British Tory government of David Cameron, which facilitated the Scottish independence referendum, the Spanish state has prevented even a legal independence referendum taking place in Catalunya, and then in typical Catch 22 fashion, uses that as a justification for denying the legitimacy of the referendum that was held, and thereby of denying permission for separation. The argument by the Spanish state, and its media mouthpieces that Catalunya needs to undertake the process legally by changing the Spanish Constitution, to allow such a vote is farcical.

What is even more farcical, is that, as with the Scottish referendum, if Spain were to facilitate such a referendum, it would probably vote against independence. The actions of the Spanish state, in violently attacking even elderly voters, in imposing direct rule in Catalunya, in threatening to imprison the Catalunyan government representatives and so on, are almost guaranteed to win additional support for the separatist cause in Catalunya, and to drive an even deeper wedge between people in Catalunya, and between Catalunya and the rest of Spain, especially given the history of Catalunya itself, and its memories of the Franco era, and especially given the family ties between current Spanish government politicians, and the Franco regime.

The responsibility of Spanish socialists, therefore is to demand that the Spanish state stops its oppressive actions against Catalunya. They should demand that if the objection is that the referendum was not legal, then the government should facilitate such a legal vote. It should mean enabling new unfettered elections in Catalunya. Spain itself can never be free, whilst it holds Catalunya in chains.

But, the experience has wider lessons. The EU has a central role to play, but it has so far failed to take up that challenge. It once again illustrates the need for the EU to establish itself as a centralised federal state. The Catalans like the Scots have made clear that they have no desire to leave the EU. Some EU representatives have begun to send out messages that with Britain leaving the EU, they would be favourable to an independent Scotland remaining in the EU. That would mitigate some of the economic damage that independence from Britain would impose on Scotland, and would at least facilitate the Scottish working-class maintaining and building its links with the EU working-class. It makes sense for the EU to make a similar offer to Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. But, in the case of Catalunya, the EU has been adamant that it would not recognise an independent Catalunya. Why? 

The obvious solution for many of these problems, is for the EU to recognise and to embrace regional governments within Europe, in the context of a federal European state structure. The answer is not a further empowerment of the old nation state, as represented by Brexit or Scottish independence, but it being superseded by a new EU state, and the development of appropriate structures at a regional level within it.