It's not over yet

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The result of the elections in Catalunya is very similar to the result of the previous elections.  Pro-independence parties have a narrow majority of seats but a little less than 50% of the popular vote.  All other things being equal, the democratic outcome would be a government very similar to that which was deposed by the Spanish state which would lead to a return to the confrontation between the Spanish nationalists and the regional government over the status and degree of autonomy of the region.

All other things aren’t quite equal, though.  With some of those elected being currently incarcerated and others in exile (and likely to be jailed the minute they re-enter Catalonia), the Spanish nationalists may have a de facto majority – with 70 pro-independence members out of 135, it only needs a handful to be ‘unavailable to vote’ when or if the Catalan parliament is reconvened.  And unless the legal proceedings against former ministers are halted, the number of elected members imprisoned, in exile, or currently out on bail and likely to be imprisoned or disqualified at the end of those proceedings is a significant proportion of the total.

Common sense, a respect for democracy, and a desire to find a negotiated way forward would all suggest that the best approach would be for the Spanish government to ensure that all those elected to the parliament are free to take their seats and participate in discussions.  Unfortunately, none of those three characteristics immediately spring to mind when I look at the Spanish central government.  What I see are people who are determined to ‘win’ – by which I mean crush Catalan aspirations once and for all – and it’s far from certain that they won’t seek to hide behind ‘the rule of law’ and take advantage of the situation to install a government more to their liking.  In a parallel of sorts with the UK, when it comes to the question of independence, the Spanish equivalents of the Labour, Tory, and Lib Dem parties have far more in common than they like people to think.

Context and facilitation

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It is increasingly clear that events in Catalunya are leading increasing numbers of Welsh independentistas to turn against the EU.  There was an article along those lines on Nation.Cymru earlier this week.  It included other arguments against the EU as well, and I don’t entirely disagree with elements of the case which was made against the EU, such as for example the suggestion that “the EU is, in fact, a deeply anti-democratic institution which favours a parasitic Banking Sector and Big Corporations above all else”.  It’s worth pointing out, however, that that isn’t a position somehow adopted by the EU and imposed on its member states; it is rather a reflection of the position taken by the governments of the individual member states, and especially the larger ones.  And given a choice between that policy and the policies likely to be followed by a post-Brexit Tory government, I fear the latter rather more.  Being the lesser of two evils isn’t the best argument for anything, of course, but noting that the alternative is likely to be worse should give us at least a pause for thought.

That’s something of an aside; the question for me is about the context in which Wales moves to independence.  Many years ago, I came round to the view that the EU provides the best context for that step to ‘independence’.  Firstly, it redefines the word ‘independence’ itself in a way which fits the actual experience of most modern European states (and becoming a modern European state is what I want for Wales), and secondly it makes the step from where we are to that state of ‘independence’ a much smaller and even ‘safer’ one in a number of ways.  It’s not an ideal analogy, but within the context of the EU, it makes achieving statehood more akin to an internal reorganisation.

I fear, though, that some independentistas have assumed that the EU would be more than a context, and would be an active facilitator, and are becoming disillusioned when they see that it is not.  I see that as a delusion; I’ve never expected that a body which acts, first and foremost, on behalf of its member states would in any way seek to facilitate or assist the reorganisation of those states (which is surely what we independentistas are all about?) against the will of their central governments.  Why would it?  The task of bringing about that reorganisation, in the teeth of opposition from existing powers and interests, lies where it has always lain – with the people themselves.  The impetus will only come – can only come – from those who desire change.  And as Catalunya has demonstrated, it is unlikely to be an easy process, although it may be less difficult in some member states than others.

Right up until the very moment of the success of the new, the spokespersons for the old will continue to oppose and obstruct; expecting them to do otherwise is folly.  And the unionists will seize upon every such statement as ‘proof’ that what we seek is impossible.  The real question is this: once the people have spoken and the facts have changed, what happens?  In truth, none of us can be entirely certain, but I still believe that the response is more likely to be pragmatic than dogmatic.  The EU will adapt to new circumstances, not because the member states will be enthusiastic about it doing so, but because the European project itself demands that they can do no other.  Just don’t expect them ever to admit that in advance.

Silent majorities

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It was Richard Nixon who did most to popularise the phrase ‘silent majority’, but it’s become one of the most over-used phrases amongst politicians who generally want to claim that the majority are on their side in spite of the lack of any substantive evidence.  The claim by Spanish unionists, duly repeated and echoed by the BBC and other so-called ‘impartial’ media sources that the ‘silent majority’ of Catalans are against independence, and that if everyone had voted in the referendum, the independentistas would have lost is just one of the latest examples. 

It’s true that, on a 100% turnout, and assuming that everyone who didn’t vote would have voted against independence, the unionists would have won.  I’ve touched on the actual figures before; the problem with that assertion is that it makes too many assumptions, amongst them that the deceased could not only have voted enthusiastically, but would also have unanimously voted against independence.  Given the actual figures that we do have, it’s hard to see on any turnout less than 99% how the unionists could ever have won; and I find it hard to believe that, even on a very good day, the turnout could have been higher than 90%.  70% is a much more likely figure, and with 37.8% already having been counted as voting yes, the yes side had an unassailable lead.

But here’s the thing: there is only one way of ever knowing what the majority really think and that’s to allow them a free vote.  If the Spanish unionists really believe that they are speaking for the majority, they have an easy way of proving it.  The fact that they are so unwilling to take that path speaks volumes.  They’re only interested in votes which produce the ‘right’ outcome – after all, they’ve already indicated that, if the Catalans dare to elect the ‘wrong’ people to their parliament, they’ll simply be forced to vote again until they get it right.

A clash of principles

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In relation to the situation in Catalunya, much has been made of the statement in the UN Charter about the right of peoples to self-determination.  It’s a clear enough statement, but as I posted previously, the problem comes in determining what defines a ‘people’ – or perhaps who defines a people.  There simply is (and I doubt that there can ever be) a simple objective test which can be applied.  So the Spanish authorities use the definition that suits their objectives whilst the independentistas in Catalunya use the one that suits theirs.  And there is no independent authority which can decide that one is right and the other wrong.  To, I’m sure, the great surprise of no-one, I support that Catalan side; but I also go further and question why ‘being a people’, however it is defined, is a necessary requirement for the exercise of self-determination.  Imposing what is, in essence, a subjective test with no objective ‘right’ answer seems an unnecessary obstacle to me.

In addition, there’s the question of context.  Whilst the Charter does not make this explicit, it is quite clear – as the authorities in Madrid would argue – that the context of the Charter was the period of decolonization, and the intention of the relevant article was to support the rights of the former colonies.  In that particular wave of colonization and conquest, places such as Catalunya (and the same applies to Scotland and Wales) were part of the process of colonization and conquest rather than the victims of it.  But, of course, if we go back further in time, they were part of an earlier phase of conquest and consolidation, as the historic European states were created.  So – is there to be a time limit on the right to self-determination?  Because that’s effectively what the Spanish state is arguing, isn’t it?

To further complicate the situation, there is another widely-accepted tenet of international law, which is that states have a right to territorial integrity.  Spain is, to an extent, relying on that principle, and much of the response from other European states has been based on that principle as well.  There is, though, a context to that principle as well.  It was accepted by European states as a basis for ending wars of aggression over territory, by accepting the boundaries as they stand today, and agreeing not to seek to change them by force, and was intended to be a means to put an end to centuries of bloodshed and war.  And it has, no doubt, been a contributory factor.  It hasn’t stopped states arguing over boundaries (for example, Spain’s own claim to Gibraltar), but it has prevented the argument going much beyond shouting.

The context, though, was never intended as an insistence that there could never be any change at all (and, in the situation of Gibraltar, Spain actually accepts that to be true), nor was putting an end to externally-imposed territorial change ever intended to be the same as insisting that states created out of a process of aggregation could never disaggregate if the people chose that, although it is ‘convenient’ for Spain – like the other aggregated states – to pretend that to be the case.  But demanding that people accept that the state of which they find themselves a part is their lot in life, which they have no choice but to accept as an unchangeable fact, goes directly against the principle of self-determination.

Two key principles of international law, in the context of Catalunya, are in direct conflict, and there is no international body or organisation which can rule between the two.  Ultimately, the only people who can decide the future of Catalunya are the people of that country/region themselves.  The tragedy of today’s situation is that it is the direct result of a refusal to allow them to make that choice in a peaceful and democratic fashion, but instead insist on imposition, by force if necessary.

What constitutes a majority?

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One of the arguments used by opponents against the result of the referendum in Catalunya is that only 42% voted, and although 90% of those voted for independence, that latter figure represents only 37.8% of the electorate.  That, they argue, is not a definitive mandate for such a major change. And, at first sight, that sounds eminently reasonable.

The first problem with it, however, is that it wasn’t only a 42% turnout.  42% is the number of votes that eventually got counted; reports suggest that the actual turnout was more like 55%, but the ‘missing’ 13% of ballot papers were seized and destroyed by the Spanish police.  There is no reason to suppose that the support for independence amongst that 13% was any different from that amongst the 42%; the problem with deliberate disruption of a democratic ballot is that the outcome, as a result, can never be precisely known – which was exactly the objective of the Spanish authorities.  It is, however, probably reasonable to estimate that the actual support for independence was 90% of 55% - or 49.5% of the electorate.

The second issue is about inconsistency.  Whilst there was a much higher turnout in the Brexit referendum (72%), the proportion of the electorate voting for the winning side was only 37.4%.  I accept that (under the rules of the referendum) that was properly considered an acceptable winning margin.  But if the support of 37.4% for Brexit is considered an acceptable democratic result in the UK, why are some of the same people arguing that 37.8% support for independence is wholly inadequate in Catalunya?

The answer that they would give, of course, is that it’s not the low figure in itself which is the problem, but the low level of turnout.  It is unlikely, but theoretically possible, that had everyone voted, the non-voting 45% would unanimously have opposed independence (although it’s certainly likely that the majority of those would have voted against independence).  On the best possible outcome for the unionist side, that would have given ‘no change’ a victory by the slimmest of majorities – 50.5% to 49.5%.  However, in reality, a 100% turnout is impossible.  At any point in time (for any electoral register) there will be some people who have died since the register was compiled; others who are too ill to participate; and yet others who are abroad or for some other reason unable to take part.  A 90% turnout would be exceptional, which means that the independentistas would still have won, even if everyone able to vote had been allowed to do so and had chosen to do so.

Now of course there’s a lot of supposition in that; there has to be given the circumstances of the vote.  The best way to resolve it and ascertain the will of the people would be to allow a properly-run ballot in which both sides were free to put their position and in which the people make the ultimate decision.  But holding such a ballot presupposes a willingness to accept that the people of Catalunya (like any other part of the world) have the right to decide, and the Spanish nationalist parties simply refuse to accept that the Catalans have any such right.

What they are prepared, not only to allow, but apparently to insist on, is new elections for the Catalan parliament, which for some unexplained reason they expect to result in a majority for the Spanish nationalist parties.  In a free and fair election, that looks unlikely to me.  In the first place, the last elections produced a narrow majority for the independentistas, and in the second, I’d expect that the actions of the Spanish nationalists have strengthened the support for independence rather than weakened it. 

But it seems to me highly unlikely, given their behaviour to date, that the nationalists running Spain will allow a situation to develop where, as a result of their own actions, they are faced with a Catalan parliament even more determined to seek independence.  And that makes me doubt that they will really allow a free and fair election.  A decision to proscribe any party advocating independence and imprison its leaders might produce a result more to their liking, but it amounts to the sort of political repression which most of us thought Spain had long ago put behind it.  It does, though, look like the likeliest option at this stage.

Nations, states, prisons and freedom

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The strongly-worded statement on Catalunya by UK Foreign Minister Mark Field will inevitably disappoint independentistas, but in terms of the element of surprise it’s roughly on a par with a declaration by the Pope that he’s a Catholic.  From the perspective of the UK Government, the Spanish declaration of the indissoluble unity of the territory and nation of Spain is an obvious truth, although of course that tiny little bit at the bottom of the Iberian peninsular can never be considered part of the territory of Spain.  Territorial integrity has its limits, after all.

No doubt the UK government would argue that the apparent discrepancy here is justified on the basis of the fact that every test of opinion in Gibraltar reveals that the population wish to remain British and not submit to Spanish rule, and they’d be right in that assertion.  It’s a little inconvenient, though, that they claim that the people of Gibraltar have the democratic right to decide not to be part of Spain at the same time as supporting the Spanish government’s assertion that the people of Catalunya can never be allowed the same right.

Hypocrisy and double-speak on this sort of issue are not, however, a problem for those who rule states like the UK, for reasons which are largely historical.  The larger member states of the EU – and I think here of Italy, Germany and France, as well as Spain and the UK – take their current form and occupy their current boundaries solely as the result of centuries of conflict and conquest.  The whole history of European statehood is one of shifting lines on maps, of states being born and then crushed out of existence, and of nations finding themselves in different states at different times.  For all the talk of Europe being composed of nation-states, a precise coincidence of national identity and state boundaries is very much the exception, not the norm.

Not wanting to go back to a situation where Europe is composed of a whole series of warring states arguing over where to draw lines on maps is a natural reaction to our common history (and it is our common history, whatever Theresa May might believe), but the response of demanding that the lines and structures must remain ossified at the point which they reached when the fighting stopped is a response which pretends that nationality and identity are firm, settled and objective realities.  That flies in the face of the human experience.  Preventing violent change is one thing, but preventing peaceful change ultimately makes the violent sort more likely.

Those larger states incorporating different national identities which were brought together by war and conquest pretend that they are in fact the natural state of affairs.  Those who ended up victorious in the process of aggregation of territory have long tried to meld together the disparate peoples and identities under their control into one single new ‘nation’, proving – if proof were ever needed – that the concept of what constitutes a ‘nation’ is itself highly flexible.  So, the nationalists running Spain claim that Spain is in fact one single nation, and demand that all those living within its boundaries accept the nationality thus bestowed upon them, and accept that any other identity which they might feel is ‘regional’ not national.  In its insistence on French as the only identity, France takes, if anything, an even harder line on those Bretons, Basques, Catalans, etc. who find themselves within its borders.

The history of the UK demonstrates another important aspect of this, which is that the creation of states doesn’t follow the existence of nations; it is rather that the creation of nations follows the existence of states.  The UK is defined as a nation state not because the boundaries follow those of an existing nation, but because the ‘British’ nation was created to match the boundaries of the state.  The same is true of Spain, France, Germany, Italy etc.  From the date of the incorporation of Wales into England, the state has pushed the idea that differences should be ‘extirpated’, and that all should share a common identity.

But here’s the sting: what history shows us is that even with a determined central power, and centuries of time to exercise that power, eliminating alternative identities is actually a very difficult thing to do.  It can work, up to a point, when people perceive a common interest – after all, the decline in the use of the Welsh language wasn’t a result of the actions of ‘the English’ but of those of Welsh people who bought into the idea that the future was ‘British’.  However, even with that assistance and complicity, it took centuries to get to the position where the language was spoken only by a minority; and even without the language, the ‘Welsh’ retained a sense of identity which was never entirely subsumed in Britishness.  (Whether that sense of identity should be given political expression in the structures of governance is another question entirely; the point is simply that killing a sense of national identity is no small task.)

The Spanish position on Catalunya, naturally and inevitably supported by the UK Government, is that if a Catalan nation ever existed it has subsequently been subsumed into a bigger and better Spanish nation, and that the ‘rest of that Spanish nation’ has an absolute right to over-rule the Catalans.  It’s a position which seems to make what is to most people the most obvious solution – a properly organised democratic referendum in which both sides put their case and the people decide – a non-starter.  But in the real world, there are only two ways of holding all the territory of an existing state together – the first is by consent and the second is by the exercise of force.  That a state which exists in its current form only because of the past use of force should see force as the natural means of assuring its own continuity will come as no surprise, just as the support of other states with a similar history is equally unsurprising.

Spain, like the UK, is in a sense the prisoner of its own history, with Spanish nationalists unable to see an alternative future based on co-operation rather than domination.  Part of the task of independentistas is to help the centralist nationalists escape from a prison which is of their own making.

Laws and legitimacy

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At the heart of events in Catalunya is a difference of opinion about the legitimacy of laws and constitutions.  The legitimacy of the position taken by the central authorities in Madrid stems from the Spanish constitution, which declares Spain to be an indissoluble whole, and the legitimacy of the position taken by the independentistas in Catalunya stems from the results of the last elections and a democratic vote in the Catalan parliament.  And from the perspective of outsiders, those supporting Madrid do so on the basis of upholding the law and territorial integrity of Spain, whilst those supporting the independentistas do so on the basis of both the democratic legitimacy of the Catalan parliament, and the wording of the UN charter, which guarantees the right of all peoples to self-government.

But one of the problems with the UN Charter is that whilst the wording is clear enough, the definition of ‘peoples’ is not; and a declaration of the rights of a ‘people’ to independence depends entirely on how we define a ‘people’ in the first place.  One of the disputes between the authorities in Madrid and those in Catalunya (and in other ‘regions’ of Spain, come to that) in recent years is whether Catalunya is a nation (as the Catalans would prefer) or a nationality (as Madrid insists, on the basis of the argument that Spain is one nation).  The implicit assumption behind that is that a ‘nation’ has rights which a ‘nationality’ does not.  Whilst the UK does not have the same debate about the precise wording, the same conflict exists under the surface, it’s just that ‘nations’ have different degrees of legitimacy.  So the UK Government is quite relaxed about using the same word (nation) to describe both Scotland and Wales on the one hand and the UK on the other, it is clear from their words and actions that they see them as two different kinds of ‘nation’. 

In both cases, the underlying question is about what a nation is and who defines it.  In the case of Spain, clearly the centre believes that it and it alone can define what is a nation, and that definition of nation can and should be imposed on all within its boundaries.  I suspect that there are some in the UK who would really like to be able to take a similar approach.  But nations are a human construct, and largely a subjective one at that.  People don’t consider themselves British or Spanish because the government insists that that is what they are; their self-identity is based on experience and history, and there are probably as many definitions of what it means to be Welsh, for instance, as there are people who claim to be Welsh.  And the same is true for any other identity.

The bigger question for me is why the question of identity or nationhood has any relevance at all here.  If the majority of the people in a particular country/region/area want to take control of their own affairs, why should it matter one iota whether they define themselves (or are defined by others) to be a ‘nation’ or a ‘people’ or not?  It seems to me that that is a wholly artificial barrier to the exercise of sovereignty by those to whom it belongs.  Ultimately, the right of any government to govern the people in the territory it delimits as belonging to it depends on the consent of those people; the right of the UK government to govern Wales, for example, cannot depend on the consent of those living in England, it can only depend on the consent of those living in Wales.  (And, by the same token, the right of the Welsh government to govern, say, Ynys Môn depends on the consent of the residents of that island – but that’s a subject for another post.)

And that goes to the heart of the current crisis in Catalunya.  Had the central authorities allowed the referendum to take place, and played a full part in it, putting their case before the people of Catalunya, opinion polls in advance suggested that there was at least a fighting chance that they would gain the continued consent of the Catalans, for a while at least – as happened in the Scottish referendum in 2014.  But effectively, they’ve simply declared that they don’t need that consent; they have the right to govern without it.  Ultimately, that is probably the best way to lose much of the consent which previously existed.  And it underlines that basic point that, in a debate of this kind, relying on a purely legalistic interpretation loses more hearts and minds that it wins.

Those who argue that law, and adherence to law, are a vital part of modern society are right in principle; but underpinning all law is legitimacy, a much vaguer concept, and that legitimacy always depends on the consent of the governed.  Failure to recognise that is a feature of dictatorship, not democracy.

Identifying the culprits

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The complicity of EU institutions in the violent suppression of the Catalan referendum by the Spanish state is leading many to question their own support for continued membership of the EU.  It's a natural enough response, but I wonder whether they are aiming their ire at the right target.

The Brexiteers told us, repeatedly and incessantly, that the EU was a superstate from which the UK, like other members, was obliged to take instructions and to which member states were in some way subservient.  This was, and is, a travesty of the truth.  The power of the EU rests primarily in the Commission – whose members are appointed by member states – and the Council of Ministers – direct representatives of member states.  The elected parliament wields far less control over the EU than either of those bodies.  This means that the EU is, to a significant extent, more a forum for negotiating, and then enforcing, agreements made between the member states than an entity with a policy agenda of its own (which is not to say that Commissioners in particular do not have their own agendas).  When it comes to taking a stance on any issue, such as the situation in Catalonia, that position is brokered by the EU institutions, but crucially stems from the positions of the member states.

So it is the position of the member states which is at the root of what is, to put it mildly, a disappointing response from the EU.  As far as the larger member states are concerned – the UK, France, Italy, and Germany – there should surely be no surprise that they take the side of Madrid.  They all have secessionist movements within their borders to which they wish to give no comfort, and they all enjoy being the big boys in the yard.  Why on earth would anyone expect any of them to support a movement which could ultimately assist in promoting their own downfall?

Of much more concern to me is the response of some of the other states.  Whilst there has been some internal debate, it seems, within the Irish Government, the response of the Republic is particularly disappointing.  The Irish, above all, should be aware that the legalistic, constitutional route to independence doesn’t work when faced with a repressive state which refuses to acknowledge your right to self-government.  Malta gained its independence from the UK peacefully, although not until after what was effectively a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1958 leading to the suspension of the constitution and imposition of direct rule.  Cyprus gained its independence from the UK after a long and bloody struggle.  Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia all declared their independence unilaterally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Croatia and Slovenia emerged from the wreckage of Yugoslavia.

All of these EU member-states have at least some recent historical understanding of the difficulties in exercising their right to independence by following only the constitutional rules of the state of which they were previously a part.  Why are they so keen to support for Catalunya what they would never have supported for themselves?  Why are they not attempting to influence the collective EU position forcefully?  It is that which angers and disappoints me, not the predictable behaviour of the big boys or their servants (not masters!) in Brussels.

Holding back the tide

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There’s more than a little irony in the way that some who have previously argued that the EU has too much power over the affairs of member states are now suggesting that the EU should have done more to intervene in the affairs of a member state in support of the Catalans voting yesterday.  It underlines the reality of the EU – it is an organisation formed by a coming together of member states, and those member states continue to hold the real power.  It’s the exact opposite of what the Brexiteers told us.  That an organisation of member states supports the position of those member states should be no surprise to anyone; it’s an argument both for becoming a full member state and for greater democratization of the organisation.

Those controlling states invariably believe that they are part of the natural order of things, and that they are – or should be – eternally indivisible wholes.  That’s as true for Spain as it is for the UK, and in both cases the central authorities attempt to justify their actions by demanding that everyone accept their definition of national identity.  So the British nationalists in the UK demand that we accept that the nation is the UK and that other identities are of lesser validity in the same way as the centralists in Spain demand that all within the territory of Spain accept that they are Spanish.  And both seek to retain current boundaries and authority.

Unfortunately for them, people don’t always feel the sense of identity that they are told to feel, and many of us feel quite relaxed about having different and overlapping identities at the same time.  But identity isn’t the only determinant of what is or should be a state; more important even than that is the idea that the people living in any area ultimately have the absolute right to decide how they shall be governed, by majority decision.  It means that there are two, and only two, methods of holding existing states together.  The first is by the consent of the people and the second is by the use of force.  Yesterday, the central authorities in Spain abandoned all pretence at following the former of those routes in favour of resorting to the latter.

Can it work?  Well, history teaches us that it has usually worked for long periods in the past; most modern states were formed and subsequently held together largely by the application of force and often appalling levels of violence over decades or even centuries.  But that was in the past: I doubt that a twenty-first century ‘democracy’ can effectively maintain unity for long by the use of force in an age where the reality of events is immediately known across the world, as well as by those directly affected.  That only leaves the ‘consent’ route.

The thing about consent is that it is, to adapt an over-used phrase, a process rather than an event.  Consent is expressed in the everyday actions of millions of people in the way that they do or do not accept the established order and interact with the state.  It is not something which happens on a specific date when a specific generation turn out to vote on a specific constitutional proposal.  An event like that does not – and cannot – bind successive generations for all time.  To try and maintain the fiction that it does – which is effectively the position of both Madrid and London - is to ignore both history and the reality of human expression.  Consent once given can be withdrawn at any time; people always have the right to determine their own future, a right which includes both keeping things as they are and choosing an alternative.

Yesterday’s use of force by the Spanish central authorities will almost certainly turn out to be counter-productive from their own viewpoint, although I suspect that there are many more twists and turns to come.  The Spanish Prime Minister has succeeded in proving what Cnut set out to prove to his courtiers centuries ago – that it is impossible to turn a tide merely by ordering it to stop – even if that was the complete reverse of his intention.  Worse, he shows no sign of realizing what it is that he has proved so clearly.

Who cares what Labour think?

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There has been criticism of the Welsh Labour government by Plaid politicians over that government’s refusal to support the right of the Catalan government to hold a referendum.  But I’m not sure why anyone would ever expect the Welsh branch of the British Labour Party to support the Catalan government’s attempt to lead Catalunya out of Spain.  Labour may be – albeit reluctantly in many cases – a devolutionist party, but at heart it supports devolution as a means of retaining and strengthening the union, not as a means of undermining it.  And its equivalent party in Spain, the PSOE, takes a similar stance.  Expecting Labour to support the position of the Catalan independentistas rather than that of its sister party is wholly unrealistic.

Insofar as there is a supposed parallel with what’s happening in Catalunya and the situation in Wales, Labour is being challenged to support a devolved administration against a centralist takeover which is, to all intents and purposes, closing down that devolved administration and taking power back to the centre.  However, the parallel with Labour opposing the power grab by Westminster following Brexit is only superficial.  There is a danger of oversimplifying a complex situation in Catalunya, but a more realistic parallel would be if a Plaid government in Wales launched a referendum on independence without the permission of a Tory government in London, and against the wishes of the Labour/Tory opposition in the Assembly.  Labour’s natural instinct in such circumstances would be to support the Tory government – so why expect them to do anything different in respect of Catalunya?

It’s true that the Catalans have been left with no obvious alternative route forward.  The referendum is unquestionably illegal under the Spanish constitution, which declares that Spain is a single and indivisible entity.  They could try to change the constitution, but no matter how big a majority they obtained in Catalunya for doing that, they would still fail unless the other ‘regions’ of Spain also supported them.  The constitution included that clause largely because it was the only way of getting the military back into their barracks after the death of Franco, and it’s true that an overwhelming majority of the Catalans backed that constitution in a referendum as a result, but – and there’s a parallel with Brexit here – who decided that a decision taken in a referendum could never be revoked; that people never have a right to change their minds?  And there was also, of course, a second later referendum in Catalunya, on a Statute of Autonomy agreed with, but subsequently repudiated by, Madrid: why is the result of one inviolable, but not the other?

The background to the referendum on independence is contested and hotly debated, but there is no doubt that, in strictly legal terms, the law is the law and the referendum is illegal.  It’s the sort of legalistic position invariably supported by Labour; and we should not forget that it was a Labour politician – Jack Straw – who argued after the 2014 referendum in Scotland that UK law should be changed to, in effect, mirror the Spanish constitution by declaring the UK to be equally indivisible, effectively outlawing any argument for independence.

There was under Spanish law no way forward for the Catalans to express their wishes regarding independence other than by organising a referendum themselves, after all efforts to hold such a referendum with the consent of the central government in Madrid came to nothing.  They were left with the choice of defying the law or simply abandoning their aspirations.  For those who believe that sovereignty belongs to the people rather than stemming from some central source, the people of Catalunya – and whether one regards them, as I do, as a nation or as others do, as a region is really irrelevant here – have a right to determine by majority decision how they should be governed, but that right is being denied them by a repressive central government, run by a party which is essentially the heir to the former dictator.

The British Labour Party is instinctively unionist, and it is a party which accepts and supports the fiction that sovereignty was bestowed by god on the monarch of England, who ‘graciously’ invested it in the UK Parliament which has, as a result, the absolute power to decide, for the whole of eternity, the governing arrangements for the territories under its control.  It is as much a British nationalist party as the Tories; it is a party which sees the UK as the ‘natural’ state of affairs, in which brotherhood and co-operation extend only as far as the English Channel, a stretch of water which mere foreigners should only be allowed to cross under sufferance.  Why on earth would anyone expect such a party to support the right of the Catalans to decide for themselves?  For Labour, the right of self-determination extends only to very foreign people far away, and certainly not to those which they define as an indivisible part of a greater and immutable whole.  No party of independentistas would or should expect them to behave any differently, and why Plaid are exercising themselves about Labour’s response is a mystery to me.

The people will decide

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I can’t remember the exact date, but sometime in the late 1970s I once met the founder of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, Jordi Pujol, who later became the leader of the Generalitat in Catalunya.  It was not long after the death of Franco, and it was still illegal for anyone even to advocate the idea of independence from the Spanish state.  That, he told me, was the reason that Convergència at that time argued for more autonomy, rather than for independence.  However, others always saw him, until the latter part of his period in government at least when he gave up on the idea of progress within the Spanish state, as more of a natural federalist than an independentista.  So, whether his commitment at that time, and for many years thereafter, to building a federal Spain was down to principle or pragmatism may well be open to debate, but it has become largely irrelevant in the context of the twenty-first century.  Things in Catalunya have moved on (in large part because of the actions of the Spanish central authorities in amending the statute of autonomy in 2010) and independence, rather than federalism, is now the mainstream of debate.

As Syniadau posted yesterday, the Catalan Parliament – in which an overall majority of the members were elected on a platform calling for independence – voted on Wednesday to proceed to hold a referendum on 1^st October.  The central authorities in Madrid have been quick to denounce this as an illegal act and have promised to prevent it happening.  Whether they will succeed or not is an open question – Syniadau argues cogently that they are unlikely to be able to prevent it taking place, and that the likeliest outcome, as things stand, is a declaration of independence within days after the votes are counted.

Strictly speaking, there is no doubt that the central authorities are correct in arguing that the move is contrary to Spanish law.  The Spanish constitution makes it clear that Spain is a single and indivisible whole and that no part has the right to secede.  Things have improved since that meeting with Jordi all those years ago, in the sense that it’s no longer illegal to advocate independence, but the only legal way to achieve it involves first persuading the rest of Spain to approve a change to the constitution.  It’s an impossible barrier – but that was always the intention.  That leaves a political movement which has won the argument in Catalunya itself, and has an electoral mandate to move forwards, with little choice.

I’ve argued in the past that I can devise no satisfactory objective definition of nationality.  Nationality is in essence both subjective and fluid; it changes over time.  And sometimes people can feel that they are members of two or more overlapping nations at the same time.  Some independentistas deny that – despite it being the everyday reality of most of the people around us – and demand that everyone choose one, and only one nationality.  That seems to me to be a futile and self-defeating quest.  But there is another point to this as well – whether defined objectively or not, is nationality the only basis for deciding whether the people living in a defined geographical area have the right to govern themselves or not?  I don’t see why it should be, and in the context of Catalunya, it doesn’t matter whether the people see themselves as Catalans, Spaniards, or a bit of both – if they decide on self-determination, who has the right to stop them?

It’s an issue which goes to the heart of what ‘sovereignty’ is and where it resides.  For those of us who believe that it belongs to all of us, the right to self-determination is one which cannot be denied once the majority desire it.  The Spanish authorities start from the perspective that ‘the law is the law’, and as a result, no part of the whole has any rights unless the rest of the whole agrees to them.  It’s an unbridgeable gulf in perceptions, which is why all attempts at negotiating some other way forward have failed.  It doesn’t look like it will be an easy ride, but the decision is now going to be taken where it should be taken: by the people of Catalunya themselves.

Being consistent

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Only once ever has my path crossed that of Lord Tebbit; I was in one of the subterranean tunnels of the Palace of Westminster many years ago with Dafydd Wigley when Tebbit came rushing out of a side tunnel beaming with delight and telling all and sundry that their lordships had just defeated his own government on what I understood to be some obscure procedural vote about a piece of European legislation.  On that flimsy piece of direct evidence, I wouldn’t exactly have high expectations about his political priorities, but he managed to excel himself last week.

He suggested that the Prime Minister should consider inviting the leaders of the Catalan independence movement to London for talks, and even raise their demand for independence, and the way that the Spanish central government is refusing to allow a referendum, at the United Nations.  It all seems a splendid idea to me, even if I don’t entirely agree with his reasons, which seem to be a bit of tit-for-tat over the way the Spanish government is handling the question of Gibraltar.  But I wonder if anyone has told him that the same Prime Minister is currently refusing to allow the Scots a further referendum on independence.  Perhaps the SNP should ask Spain to raise their case at the UN?

For Wales, don't see Scotland

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Wales isn’t Scotland, and there are always dangers in trying to extrapolate the situation in one country into conclusions for the other.  The differences go back a long way, well before the advent of devolution; the difference in the devolution settlements is in large part the result of the starting point being so different.  Scotland, for instance, already had its own legal system.  And here in Wales, the national cause has long been complicated by the overlap between the political and the linguistic battles.

But we shouldn’t allow the stress on the differences to blind us to some similarities either.  Plaid Cymru and the SNP both have their roots in the same period of history, and their record of electoral success (or lack thereof) over the long term shows a number of parallels.  Even as recently as the first elections to the devolved bodies in 1999, the electoral pattern was broadly similar – the SNP took 35 seats out of 129 whilst Plaid took 17 out of 60.  It is only since then that the paths have diverged so significantly.

There are many reasons for that electoral divergence, but they’re not particularly relevant here.  The important thing is that the degree of divergence in electoral history between the two countries since 1999 leaves the two countries in very different circumstances.  

Whilst support for independence in Scotland has varied over the years, it has been consistently higher than support for Welsh independence.  Again, there are a number of possible reasons for that, but I cannot help but conclude that one of those reasons is that, in Scotland, the case has been regularly debated and promoted.  There has been a political party in Scotland prepared to make the case, through thick and thin, whilst in Wales the advent of devolution and the need for nation-building (which, by the way, I don’t question per se) was used as a substitute for, rather than an adjunct to, making the case for the aim of independence.  I don’t believe that any argument is ever won by not being made, and waiting for the people of Wales to come around to support for independence of their own accord – which is where much of the ‘national’ movement currently seems to be – looks like a recipe for never making it.

The result is that the future looks very different for the two nations, particularly in the light of Brexit.  For all the optimism of independentistas, it is far from certain that Scotland will make the break and choose a European future rather than an isolationist British one.  For their sakes, I hope that they do, even if such a move would leave Wales even more vulnerable to domination from our very much larger eastern neighbour.  But we cannot be certain, and should not take the outcome for granted.  We can, though, at least consider the impact on Wales of such an outcome.

I fear that, to return to my starting point, too many independentistas in Wales are reading across from Scotland to Wales, and hoping (or even assuming) that Scottish independence (and, with that, continued Scottish membership of the EU) will make Welsh independence more attractive and more likely.  I can see why that might be the case in the context of continued UK membership of the EU, particularly if other European nations such as Catalunya follow a similar path.  The parallel, particularly if those other nations (as seems likely) make a success of their choice, is clear enough.  But the parallel in the case of a Wales which would have to face a significant transitional period outside the UK whilst seeking to negotiate entry to the EU as a new member is a great deal less obvious.  I’d go so far as to say that it isn’t really a parallel at all; it would be, rather, a unique situation.  As a result, people would naturally see it as being a great deal more risky.

The assumption that a Scottish exit from the UK before Brexit happens will lead to a demand for the same thing in Wales is a lazy one.  The danger is that, by making such an assumption, and through continued failure to make the case for Wales to take control of her own affairs, the likelier future for Wales in a UK shorn of Scotland and outside the EU is greater integration into England, especially in economic terms.  Oh, I’m sure that we’ll be allowed to keep our little Assembly down in Cardiff, but our voice will be heard even less than it is now.  The timescale for any change in direction to avert that outcome is short, and the clock is ticking.

Spain's opposition to Independence is not a given

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A few days ago, Gwynoro Jones published on his blog the text of a speech by Lord Owen at Cardiff University.  It’s rather lengthy, I fear, but in essence he argues that we need to establish a mechanism for moving to a federal structure for the UK.  He’s not alone in seeing that as the way forward, and I suspect that a number of nationalists in Wales, and perhaps even in Scotland, would be content, ultimately, with a truly federal structure.

The devil, though, is in the detail, and particularly, what to do about England.  Whilst England isn’t as homogeneous as some think, neither is regional identity developed to the point where splitting it into regions is a realistic proposition.  And even if it were so split, the English regions collectively would still have a strong common identity, and amount to 85% of the population of the federation, and thus hold overwhelming sway at federal level.

However, my purpose here isn’t really to discuss federalism, but to deal with one of the assertions made by Owen in rejecting other potential alternative futures.  He says, very bluntly, “The option of separate EU membership for Scotland or for Wales does not exist”.  Now, of course, it’s much easier to convince nationalists that the only way forward is federalism if you can simply take the other alternative, of independence within the EU, off the table, so I can understand why he would want to do so.  But his argument leading up to that assertion is, at the very least, open to challenge.

It is based on the assumption that other EU countries – and most especially Spain – will veto any attempt by secessionist states to seek independent entry to the EU for fear of creating a precedent which will merely encourage Catalan nationalists.  Actually, I don’t doubt that both the party currently governing the Spanish central government and the main opposition party would very much prefer that Scotland (or Wales, for that matter) did not become an independent state – it would make things less difficult for them.  However, at present, it’s an open question as to whether Scotland will establish a precedent for Catalunya or whether Catalunya will establish a precedent for Scotland; it’s hard to judge what the pace of events will be in both countries.

Let us assume, however, as Lord Owen seems to, that Scotland win that particular race to independence; how certain is it that Spain would then veto any proposal for enlargement of the EU to include Scotland (I’m leaving open the question of timing, and thus whether than enlargement is internal or external)?  The answer is far from certain – nowhere near as certain as opponents of independence like to assume.

Wee Ginger Dug highlighted a quote from the Spanish foreign minister (a source who might be supposed to know a little more about Spain’s position than Lord Owen) three years ago, prior to the Independence referendum, which read:

“Lo importante es que el derecho a decidir o cualquier otro derecho debe entenderse siempre en el marco de la Constitución y las leyes.”

“The important thing is that the right to decide or any other right ought always to be understood within the framework of the constitution and the laws.”

And actually, that’s entirely consistent with their position on Catalunya, which is a legalistic one as much as a political one.  Under the Spanish constitution, Catalunya simply has no right to seek independence unless the parliament for the whole of Spain first agrees to change the constitution.  It’s a bit like England having a veto over Scottish independence, but given the difference in the constitutions of the two countries, the implication is that Spain would ultimately accept an independent Scotland if it came about by a process which the UK recognised as being lawful.

The same minister has also said, more recently, “I may be wrong, but within four or five years England will return to the frontiers that it had in the sixteenth century.”  Hardly the words of a man who’s expecting to exercise a veto over what Scotland wants to do.  He is, of course, only one man.  As of last month, he’s no longer the Foreign Minister, and it’s possible that even when he was, he spoke for the Government’s policy in the same way that Boris Johnson speaks for the UK Government’s policy.  But whilst I can find a lot of bluster and reticence from other figures in the Spanish Government, I can find no clear statement saying that they would veto Scottish membership of the EU.

But then, I wouldn’t expect to, particularly post-Brexit.  One particular failing of the UK establishment, on which I’ve commented before, is its understanding of the importance of the European project to the other 27 members.  For the 27, it is a political project as much as, if not more than an economic one, not simply the free trade area assumed by UK politicians.  And from that perspective, it’s much more likely that they’d welcome Scotland than reject it.  It’s just that expecting them to say that in advance is unrealistic.

I could be completely wrong, of course; and Lord Owen could turn out to be right.  The point is that we simply don’t know, and can’t know, with any certainty, what the reaction to an independent Scotland would be before it happens.  They key thing here is that, precisely because we cannot know, assuming that the answer will be the one we want is a wholly inadequate way of dismissing that which we don’t want.

It’s easier for Lord Owen to dismiss independence within the EU ‘because Spain won’t allow it’ than it is to enter into debate about the merits of the case; but it’s not a robust argument.

Seizing the time

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Yesterday’s speech by the UK Prime Minister managed on the one hand to clarify little about the nature of Brexit (other than that it still means Brexit, although whether saying that X means X adds anything to the sum total of human knowledge isn’t even a moot point), whilst on the other making it clear that in any conflict between control of immigration and the economic interests of the country, the former will take precedence.  Inevitably, most of the reporting of what she said will be seen by most of us through the prism of a UK perspective on the world, but I can’t help wondering whether there aren’t European leaders scratching their heads and trying to work out why on earth any government with any sense would think that keeping a few foreigners out was more important than maximising economic benefits.  ‘How on earth do we negotiate with people who think that way?’ they must surely be thinking.  Perhaps that’s a deliberate part of her strategy – keep them mystified.

Inevitably, her statement that the UK is one single entity and will exit the EU as such will attract attention in Wales, and even more so in Scotland.  In Wales, given that a majority of those who voted opted for ‘leave’, it will be easy to dismiss the special pleading of Carwyn Jones and the Welsh ‘government’, particularly since he asserts continually that the one thing he does not want is for Wales to have the sort of power and autonomy which would justify a different sort of deal for Wales.  I put the word ‘government’ in quotes for a reason here: another interesting part of the PM’s wording was that she described her government as ‘the government’ and those of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as being ‘devolved administrations’.  I suspect that tells us quite a lot about her perspective on devolution, even if only by inference.

There are other clues to her perspective as well, in the way she uses the word ‘sovereign’.  It is clear that to her sovereignty lies in London with Parliament and the Crown, and is not the property of the people.  That is an accurate statement of the legal position under the UK constitution - that point has been made on this blog in the past.  It’s at odds, though, with the idea that Brexit has to happen because the people have instructed the government to organise it, which was another element in her speech.  To me, there’s an obvious contradiction there.

At this stage, it looks more likely than not that there will be another vote on Scottish independence, although it’s still far from certain, and the timing will be the subject of a great deal of analysis in Scotland itself.  I had the impression from reading her speech that she’s either being as complacent about political developments in Scotland as was her predecessor, or else she really doesn’t get the idea that it’s ultimately up to the people themselves.  Maybe both.

But what happens in Scotland over the next two years won’t be happening in isolation.  In the immediate future, the spotlight might well be moving to Catalunya, where a showdown between the Generalitat and the central Spanish authorities is slowly but inexorably approaching.  As Syniadau has reported, the leader of the government there has made it clear that there will either be a referendum on independence or there will be a referendum on independence; whilst the outcome is not yet certain, the continued short-sighted refusal of the central authorities – which are in a state of limbo anyway after two indecisive elections – even to allow the people a choice is likely to favour those supporting independence.  There is a similar demand for constitutional change in the Basque country as well.  In the long term, and short of using military might, people cannot be coerced into leaving a state of which they are part – but neither can they be coerced into staying in a state of which they no longer want to be a part.  Sovereignty, and where power lies, are issues for the people themselves.

The increasingly jingoistic noises, along with the nineteenth century attitudes to the rest of the world, coming from members of the new UK Government are depressing to many of us.  They might yet, however, provoke faster and greater constitutional change within the British Isles.  And that change might come to look like part of a European phenomenon rather than a peculiarly Scottish or British one.  From that perspective, it’s not impossible that an attempt by part of the UK to become less European could actually make other parts become more European in outlook.  The question for us in Wales is which side of history we want to be on; at the moment, it looks to me as though we’re in danger of choosing the wrong side.  This is not a time for being too afraid of scaring the horses even to put the case for independence; it’s a time for being bold and seizing an opportunity which may not come again for a very long time.

They just keep on digging

Tweet There’s a detailed analysis of the results of the election in Catalunya on Syniadau.  In essence the parties in favour of UDI won a majority of the seats but not of the votes; although if the votes of the pro-independence but anti-UDI parties are added in, there’s a small but clear pro-independence majority, even if there remains disagreement as to how it should be achieved.

The reaction of the Spanish central government has been disappointing, even if hardly unexpected – Spain is an indivisible whole and no change can ever be contemplated.  Formally, the judiciary and the executive in Spain are entirely separate, and the government deny any involvement in judicial decisions, but the announcement that the leader of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, is to be charged and tried for organising last November’s ‘illegal’ referendum has come within days of the election results.  It may just be coincidence, but it doesn’t look that way.

The Spanish government’s position has been clear throughout.  The law about the unity of Spain (which dates from the days of Franco) is part of the constitution of Spain.  It is unchallengeable and irrevocable.  There can be no referendum on independence, nor can parties use an election victory on an independence platform to claim a mandate.  All routes forward are blocked, legally and for ever.

There are echoes there, albeit centuries later, of the way a small country much closer to home was incorporated “henceforth and for ever” into its larger neighbour; and the same problems arise.  Nothing, in the context of humanity, can ever be ‘for ever’; change is an essential element of human culture.  The rich and the powerful have always pretended that they can fix things in a certain way and keep them like that in perpetuity – but they simply can’t.  It’s an attitude which depends, ultimately, on the fiction that power belongs to the centre, not to the people.

In Spain, the view of the centre is based on an axiomatic statement that Spain is a nation and Catalonia is a region of that nation – a region with its own language and history, to be sure, but no more than a region nevertheless.  From that perspective, Catalans who believe otherwise are simply wrong.  But the fact that that that would still be ‘true’, even if every last one of them voted for pro-independence parties, underlines that such a position is ultimately unsustainable in a modern democracy, because there is no way of maintaining it against the will of the people other than by the use of force.

In the short term, I don’t doubt that the Spanish government will continue to use all the legal powers it can muster to resist and disrupt the independence movement.  That includes the use of criminal proceedings against people who dare to take a different view and try to pursue their objectives in a peaceful and democratic fashion.  But it’s ultimately counter-productive.  Winning a court case here or there might look like a victory at the time, but it simply builds the momentum for the change which now seems to be inevitable.

Could a more enlightened approach have built a negotiated settlement which led to more autonomy within a continued Spanish state?  Possibly.  Just as including a third option on the ballot paper in Scotland might have seriously blunted the independence movement there.  But that goes to the heart of the reason why the centralists will ultimately fail.  They only seem capable of taking a short term view.  Today’s victory is always enough, and they’ll worry about tomorrow’s battle when it comes.  The Catalans have always been playing a much longer term game.  And the end game is now approaching.

Thinking ahead?

Tweet On Sunday, the people of Catalunya were given a chance to vote in a “consultative” ballot run by volunteers, on the question of independence.  Those who voted were overwhelmingly in favour.

The result has inevitably been dismissed by the Spanish government.  The Unionist parties argue that the ballot cannot legitimately reflect the wishes of the region because it was organised by the pro-independence parties.  On this point, I cannot but agree with the Spanish government.  No referendum organised on this basis by the supporters of one side of the debate was ever going to give a mandate for independence.  For such legitimacy, a proper vote would be needed using the formal electoral roll – a ballot, in fact, of the sort which the same Spanish government went to court to prevent happening.

It’s a legalistic Catch-22 for supporters of independence.  The Spanish centralists are relying on a provision in the Constitution laid down by a dictator who had no time for either democracy or sub-state nationalism, and using it to stifle the voice of the Catalans.  Would the Catalans still vote for independence so overwhelmingly in a properly held ballot?  That’s an open question, which can only be answered by holding such a ballot; but trying to prevent such a ballot from being held seems to me more likely to lead to an increase in support for the proposition than to defeat it.

Where next in the process?  (And it’s not entirely academic for us in the UK – it’s the sort of situation in which the UK could find itself if instinctive conservatives such as Jack Straw had their way and enshrined in law the concept of an indissoluble kingdom.)

It seems likely now that the next elections in Catalunya will become a referendum on the issue; and it currently seems more likely than not that the pro-independence parties will win a majority for the proposition.  What then? I wonder whether the Spanish government have really thought further ahead than the court case outlawing the ballot – do they understand the potential consequences of their stance?

There’s no sign of them becoming any less intransigent on the question; and a Catalan government with a clear majority faced with such intransigence probably has little alternative to a unilateral declaration of independence, given the pressure from its own supporters in such circumstances.

Faced with that, the centralists in Madrid would have only two logical options – to accept reality, or to send in troops from the rest of Spain to depose the government and impose direct rule.  I find it really hard to believe that a 21^st-century European democracy would resort to the latter; and even if they did, rule from the centre would serve only to further inflame Catalan feelings.

“Trech gwlad nag arglwydd”, as we say in Welsh.  Ultimately people cannot be coerced into remaining part of any state against their will for the indefinite future.  A state exists only by the will – or at the very least the acceptance – of its people.  The Spanish prime minister reminds me increasingly of King Cnut – the difference being that Cnut knew that he could not control the tide.

Laws and legitimacy

Tweet One of the characteristics of the last UK Labour Government was their apparent blind faith in legislation as the answer to everything.  Whatever the problem, the solution was invariably to pass a new law to deal with it.  It gave the appearance of action – which always pleases the spin doctors – without necessarily making much difference to anything.

Jack Straw’s call at the weekend for a new law to declare the UK indissoluble comes from the same stable.  Of course, in the case of Wales, no new law is needed – after all “annexed and incorporated, henceforth and for ever” is about as final and definitive as one can get.  But the fact that there were already laws covering particular issues never stopped them legislating in the past, and I have no reason to believe that it would do so in the future either.

The Welsh precedent also highlights another point.  The fact that the law says that the union is indissoluble does not, and cannot, stop people making a case for dissolving it.  Enforcing such a law requires a much more draconian approach.  That’s been tried in the past as well, but it doesn’t work for ever either.

I remember speaking to a Catalan nationalist in the final years of the Franco regime in Spain, and I asked why he was only arguing for a degree of autonomy rather than independence.  It wasn’t that he was not in favour of independence, merely that Spanish law forbade him from saying so, and in a dictatorship such as Spain was at that time, such a law could be, and was, enforced.  As it happens, the Spanish law forbidding any part of Spain from attaining independence is still in force, and the Spanish government is attempting to rely on that law.  But, as the Catalans are about to prove by holding their own independence referendum in November, such a law cannot prevent them seeking to take responsibility for their own country.

The Catalan experience, in turn, highlights another point.  The words legislation and legitimacy may come from the same root, but legislation is not the only thing which confers legitimacy.  The existence of the Catalan parliament, and the people’s decision to elect to it a majority committed to seeking independence, confers an alternate legitimacy on their actions, and on the referendum which they are about to hold.  That legitimacy comes from the people, and such legitimacy will always trump laws made in the past. 

The legitimacy conferred by electing a majority of nationalists to any parliament brings me to another point.  Over the weekend, Alex Salmond made the entirely rational point that a referendum is not the only possible route to independence.  (Whether it would be wise to seek another route is another question entirely, and I’m not going to go into that here.  I merely support the point that he makes, which is that plenty of countries have seen their legislatures move from devolved power to complete power without holding a referendum.)  The greater the degree of autonomy enjoyed by a parliament, the more credibility its freely-elected representatives have in speaking for the people, even on non-devolved issues.

I doubt Straw’s Law will ever become a reality, but if it does it will be an irrelevance from the day on which it is passed.  The people of Scotland and Wales may never choose to become independent; they have as much right to make that choice as the alternative.  But it won’t be any new law which prevents them.

Business as Usual

Tweet A month or so ago, Barack Obama, at Cameron’s urging, made an intervention in the debate on Scottish independence, making it clear that he saw advantages to the US in having a strong united partner.  (That’s an argument that might work for some, although whether providing the sort of strong united partner that the US might want is a good argument against independence depends a great deal on one’s perspective.)

It seems that Obama had previously declined a similar invitation from Spain’s PM, Mariano Rajoy, but the US ambassador to Spain, James Costos, did comment on the question of Catalan independence last week.  His comments were, however, rather more equivocal.  Even so, he subsequently tried to backtrack a little to appear, if possible, even more equivocal.

The key point he made was a very simple and obvious one, which is that if things change, then companies adapt to those changes.

He’s right, and Independence, whether for Scotland or Catalonia, is inarguably a change in circumstances which would call for adaptation; but actually, independence itself isn’t really going to be much of an issue for most companies.  More important for them will be the taxation and regulatory policies pursued by the independent governments after independence.

Whilst the leaders of some companies – as we’re seeing in Scotland at present – are making bold statements about the implications for independence and what they’ll do in response, much of this is hot air based on using the companies which they lead to provide a platform for expression of their own political prejudices.  What any company which seeks to be successful will actually do after independence will be based on a much more careful and rational assessment of the nature of the new regime under which they’ll be working.  And given that Scotland is certain to remain in the EU with all the same rules about the single market, the likelihood has to be that they’ll carry on as though nothing has happened.