Catalan Referendum

New elections would have been the better solution.

Both sides seem driven to avoid the "Better solution" at all costs.

This is what happens when nationalist strongmen clash.

Neither will seek the "better solution" because that inevitably requires compromise. And a strongman will be too afraid of looking weak to do that.

edited 27th Oct '17 11:05:30 AM by M84

"New elections" would not have been a better solution, unless there were substantial guards against Madrid doing its best to fuck with them—for instance, not having military police hanging around. This is also assuming that their response wouldn't include "let's arrest or bar from standing for election any of the people that would be inconvenient". And even with this case, unless the elections completely changed the makeup of the parliament, then what.

Keep having elections until Madrid gets a government it wants? It has no interest in engaging.

Rajoy is the constitutionalist strongman (but is incompetent). Puigdemont is the (slightly) incompetent pushover dependent on the pro-independence parties/factions within the Catalan government and parliament (and therefore is not a strongman).

But to equate both sides according to your perception of 'nationalist' is wrong. Because Catalonia is, in general, a very modern region (especially when it comes to its art and culture).

Puigdemont had said a day earlier that there were not enough stable conditions to pursue the path of elections. He probably suspected Madrid would engage in some heavy political manipulation (such as taking control of some of the Catalan media through PP's harsh intepretation of the 155th).

Anyway, the pieces are moving. Now it's a question of seeing the clash between PP's application of the 155th (which will likely be harsh) and the next steps that the Catalan government will take (which will either fail or be successful through making the other side look bad).

A civil war tends to start only if both sides have a relative amount of weaponry and manpower that allow for the escalation of a conflict. Catalonia only has the Mossos available (and they're no military force), and they're no match for the Guardia Civil.

edited 27th Oct '17 12:11:12 PM by Quag15

You should not believe this at face value. In truth, what he is saying is, "I will not call for elections unless the spanish government calls off invoking article 155."

They've already made the decision to use the article in the harshest way possible. They've announced that Puigdemont, Junqueras, the rest of the generalitat (along with any delegates abroad and any other political apointees or aides) will be sacked. The Parlament will be dissolved and elections held on the 21st of december.

edited 27th Oct '17 12:21:26 PM by germi91

Yes, I should've added that. The 155th being invoked is a high-risk move by Madrid, and which escalated the situation (I'm aware that Puigdemont went back and forth on the matters in these past few days.

Mind you, I'm not interested in taking some of the speeches by PP at face value, either. There's a strangely paternalistic discourse behind their speeches, and their interpretation of the 155th may cause further imbalance and destabilize their goals of preserving the constitutional unity and the rule/State of law.

That plus interfering with the TVC and its respective TV, radio and news channels, right?

edited 27th Oct '17 12:26:16 PM by Quag15

Indeed, now will come the actions from the CNP or the Guardia Civil. A number of arrests will be made and it's in the massive practical operation of the arrests that we will see how events unfold.

You do correctly in taking the actions of the president and the council of ministers with skepticism as to their intentions. It's very likely they will use this opportunity to produce a number of possible administrative, economic, social and legislative reforms in Catalonia that will attempt to hamper pro-independence organizations and parties.

At least if it were my goal to undermine the independence movement, I'd look towards their source of fundings and attempt to diminish their influence as much as possible in a variety of other ways.

They didn't announce it yet, but it's likely they will apply the article in a gradual manner. We'll likely see this happen in the following days along with a number of other measures.

edited 27th Oct '17 12:28:41 PM by germi91

Step one, take control of all forces that can resist you.

Canada has officially (no surprise) announced that it is in favor of Spanish unity, with some talk about deescalation thrown in.

http://metronews.ca/news/canada/2017/10/27/trudeau-in-quebec-today-for-pitfield-funeral-and-canada-child-benefit-announcement.html

Not surprised the UK doesn't recognize Catalonia, given where I'm from.

edited 28th Oct '17 5:49:06 PM by Vampireandthen

Nobody is going to recognise Catalonia because of the circumstances (and even this government isn't so insane as to give Spain a reason to veto everything related to the UK right now).

The UK has always been hypocritical about stuff like that anyway. They can leave an union whenever they want, but if others want to leave their union, they are suddenly idiots at best.

At least we give places the option.

There's nothing hypocritical about it at all; remember that the key issue here is power: out of the EU, the dominant power is the Westminster government, which gets sole control over all the regions of the UK without answering to EU regulations. It's remarkably consistent, in fact.

Anyway, the current crop of Tories are very different to past Tories, who wouldn't have dreamed of leaving the EU. Thatcher has made the changes that enabled the current crop to exist and be in power, but I doubt even she imagined this would happen. Both she and John Major kept the Brexit lobby firmly at bay and refused to entertain even the possibility of holding an EU referendum, never mind actually supporting Brexit.

The door to the current situation was opened in 2001, when Iain Duncan Smith became Tory leader over Ken Clarke in a blatant anti-EU versus pro-EU leadership content; IDS is one of the big drivers of Brexit in the Tory Party (and also for getting out of the ECJ and E Co HR), whereas Kenneth Clarke (who in the 80s and 90s was considered one of the party crazies) is now seen as the party's Only Sane Man. The Brexit lobby had its in-road there, but it wasn't until David Cameron that it had a prime minister that was under the thumb of the Brexit lobby. Cameron was the weakest prime minister the Tory Party's had for decades, which is why he triggered an EU referendum — he didn't have the strength to oppose it. Now, bear in mind that Major was portrayed by the press as a weak leader and compare that to Cameron, who had the press on his side.

(Note: Years later, it came out that the reason the press was anti-Major was because he refused to be cowed over Brexit; by refusing Murdoch an EU Referendum or support for Brexit, Murdoch turned the press against him. So, Major turned out to be a much stronger man than people realised.)

edited 29th Oct '17 11:26:04 AM by Wyldchyld

The pound-burning pig-f*cker.

Update on the situation: Belgium has offered political asylum for any Catanolian leaders who request it and it seems like Puidgemont has already travelled there to take up the offer (facing sedition charges from the Spanish government). What weird times we live in.

[1]

edited 30th Oct '17 8:12:06 AM by Grafite

I wonder how the Catalonian government were thinking this was going to go down, really. I mean, you don't just declare independence without some sort of plan, right?

Apparently that's how they roll in Catalonia.

The YOLO revolution.

I think the plan is to hand Madrid as much rope as it needs.

The whole thing is almost a repeat of Brexit. People that shouldn't really have this much power going WELL SCREW YOU I'M DOING WHAT I WANT despite everyone and their mothers telling them it's a terrible idea, riling up a whole lot of people to their side that really should know better...and now once they got what they wanted they just realized what a shit pit they've thrown themselves into and are jumping ship as fast as they can

It's more like the Scottish independence referendum only the English parliament reacted by sending cops to Scottish polling places and beating the tar out of them, charged everyone involved with sedition and used it to consolidate power.

So basically Madrid managed to fuck up harder than London did.

edited 31st Oct '17 5:11:59 AM by math792d

You have to admit, it does take real skill in and dedication to the art of the bollox-up to beat Westminster.

edited 31st Oct '17 7:00:48 AM by Euodiachloris

Bollocking everything up seems to be in vogue these days.