Blood and Force are no answer to Catalunya

There can be little I can write about Catalonia that has not already been said by every quality paper, every informed columnist and every intelligent journalist - that we are headed into a tragedy, that it's gone too far, that it never should have happened. And also that neither side, both so pig-headedly stupid, so intransigent, so puffed with ferocious virtue, will move. 

Blood and force will not solve the crisis, will not diminish the urge for self-determination. Civil war is not yet possible - unlike the former Jugoslavia, both sides are not in possession of military hardware. Catalonia's leaders will be consigned for the rest of their lives to grim Spanish prisons. Terrorism instead will emerge; taxes will be unpaid, ministers spat at, Civil Guards on patrol will be slaughtered, government buildings bombed, aircraft flown into the Cortes, the King assassinated, innocent lives destroyed. Eventually, after both sides are utterly sick of the bloodshed, Catalonia will regain a measure of self-government. 

Can we ever realise that we can avoid all the blood, the agony, the grief, the lost years, the economic turmoil and cut straight to the deal? Where in God's name is a Statesman or Stateswoman of stature who can halt this descent into Hell and bang both their stupid heads together? 

You cannot, you simply cannot, hold an entire people captive, subjugated, against their will. The right of self determination is inconvenient but unavoidable. That's why we agreed with Scotland's wish for a plebiscite in 2014, in which they voted No, a result (despite what the SNP may think) that both nations agree binds us for generations. We must also face the reality that Catholics in Northern Ireland will outnumber Protestants possibly within my lifetime, and if that rebalance results in a plebiscite that approves rejoining the Province to the Republic then we must learn to live with it. That's what an advanced and mature democracy does. 

For Catalonia, I pray that both sides will pull back, agree to restore the status quo ante, release the Catalonian hostages from Spanish prisons, and above all agree to a binding referendum on independence when heads are cooler, say in 2022, to allow the necessary changes to the Spanish constitution.  

Spanish State revives the Garrotte

I remember the 1970s very well. I was taking my 'O' levels and impatient for an end to the war in Vietnam; cheap air travel was just starting, though there was a certain hesitation about Spain as a holiday destination because the Fascist dictator there was still butchering his political opponents - Jake Wallis Simons in the Speccie;

Under Franco, Catalan language and culture were banned, and aspirations of independence repressed. Franco maintained this stance up until his death. Just eight months before the dictator shuffled off his mortal coil, a young Catalan revolutionary anarchist, Salvador Puig Antich, had his coil shuffled off for him by a State executioner armed with a garrotte. The killing took place at the notorious La Model prison, which was located about a mile from where those thugs were Sieg Heiling on Sunday. Rajoy has no more desire to see Catalonia break away than had Franco.

If anyone can tell me why the Catalan people don't qualify as a separate people under UN guidelines, and deserving of the proper choice of self-determination, legally overseen by the EU and the UN, I'd be interested to know. 

One can't rely on the Spanish courts - the WEF rates them as corrupt as the ECJ, less independent than courts in Botswana, Azerbaijan, China, Chile and Bhutan. The courts there still do what the Spanish fascists tell them to. Thay will stand by whilst Rajoy garrottes democracy. There's no justice to be had within Spain. In fact the rule of law everywhere in the EU except the UK is so piss-poor that Roland Freisler must be dancing in the flames.

Moral courage that shames the dictators of Brussels

The Summer of 1941 was a bleak and fearful one in Britain. We stood alone; the public mood in the USA was against any involvement in the war, our cities were nightly being destroyed by Nazi bombers, Hood had been sunk, Rommel was pushing us back to Egypt in North Africa, Nazi U-boats were sinking tens of thousands of tons of shipping. A beam of hope shattered the gloom in June when the mad Hitler invaded the Soviet Union - and Britain, itself short of every piece of war equipment, with nary a .303 round to spare, under threat of invasion, gamely dispatched convoys of war material to Stalin, beggaring our own forces to do so.  

In August, at very considerable risk from U-boats, aircraft and the spiteful might of the Nazi behemoth, Churchill crossed the Atlantic to meet President Roosevelt to agree the foundation of a postwar world. It was a meeting of the most astounding confidence, with Britain at danger of falling to the Nazi jackboot and the US not even in the war. From it came the Atlantic Charter, a document of hope, freedom and justice, a candle to light the breath of aspiration amid the dark blanket of evil that fell across Europe and Asia.

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavour, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

It was the document that built the foundation of the United Nations, back in the days of its purity and before its corruption by lesser nations and little crooks in league with global corporatists. The right of self-determination was proclaimed unequivocally by the UK - at a time when a third of the globe was still coloured pink. It committed us to the most ambitious postwar programme of independence that the world has ever seen, as people after people, nation after nation, were given leave to exercise self-determination. The Atlantic Charter is an enduring document of the most profound moral worth, a foundation stone of peace and civilisation for the twenty-first century. 

Let us remember those principles of self-determination this week, at a time when the functionaries of the EU act even now to suppress the identity and freedoms of Europe's peoples under a new legal and economic jackboot. Let us also remember the moral courage, the almost unbelievable confidence in the power of Right and Justice, that was displayed by the leaders of the free world in 1941. 

Spain blocks any meaningful dialogue over Catalonia

The next few days will be critical for hopes of a peaceful resolution to the Catalan crisis. 

El Pais sets out most clearly the Spanish position;

As things stand today, the Spanish Constitution does not contemplate the right to secession. It obliges all powers to preserve the unity of the state and to guarantee that sovereignty will remain in the hands of all Spaniards.

Accepting a dialogue, mediation or negotiation that might lead to a legal, agreed-to referendum with a binding option for Catalan secession from Spain entails opening up a negotiation for constitutional reform between the governments of Spain and Catalonia, and this is something that the central government cannot do unilaterally, much less under pressure or through international mediation.

The only body that can reform the Constitution is Congress – where Catalans are also represented, by the way. To this should be added all the citizens of Spain, who would have to be consulted in a national referendum.

And there you have it; Spain is indivisible, self-determination, even for a population that meets international criteria for a separate people, will not be permitted. With all offers of external mediation rejected, and Catalans not given the slightest hope of a legal referendum, Catalan leaders are being forced into an unlawful and unwarranted declaration of independence, or abject surrender to Madrid's rule. 

This is not the way to deal with devolution in the 21st century. Even at this hour I hope calmer heads will prevail to avert what would be a catastrophe for the peoples of Spain and Catalonia.

Felipe of Spain - just the same old don?

Felipe VI of Spain showed his real attitude to self-determination back in July, on a State visit to the UK during which we pretended he was welcome and he pretended that he enjoyed being here. The toy king (founded 1975) who owes his throne to the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels refused to recognise the government of Gibraltar (founded 1713) or the rights of the people of Gibraltar to determine their own future; a true EUphile, he wanted instead to trade the freedom of the people of the Rock without any reference to their own views. 

His uncompromising and brutal speech on self-determination in Catalonia confirms his attitude towards extending democracy within his toy kingdom. No calls for dialogue, no door left open for a future legitimate referendum, no compromise. In the world of kings he is something of a counter-jumper, an arriviste, a nouveau roi. Perhaps his grasping approach to what is left of the Spanish empire is not unexpected; neither Ceuta nor Melilla, holdings far less legitimate and democratic than Gibraltar, will be allowed to slip from Spain's grasp. 

Many in Catalonia now blame Felipe for the paramilitary violence last weekend. They know their king better than we do, and have a shrewd idea of the extent of his power to direct Spain's military. This also raises whether Felipe is personally behind the long series of military provocations against Gibraltar this year. Is Felipe just the same old unreasoning, fanatical don that we have known before? Has loyalty to the Pope just been replaced with loyalty to the EU? 

I sincerely hope that both sides pull back from the brink next week, that Spain concedes a proper referendum, that the Catalan parliament resists declaring independence. Felipe and his EU masters have shown themselves to be both wilful and stupid so far, driving the region to secession. Let's hope more balanced voices are heard - possibly Switzerland, which has already offered to mediate, but has been spurned by both Spain and the EU. 

Felipe may want to take note. Switzerland is what an actual democracy looks like - and every Canton retains the right to leave the Swiss Federation. Perhaps he was sick on the day they taught democracy.

Felipe II and Felipe VI - the same old don?

EU regional policy - yet another grievous error

The EU set up the Committee of the Regions in 1994 with a huge lie. Its real purpose was to establish direct governance links between Brussels and European local government whilst bypassing those pesky democratic national governments and states. Sometime over the last ten or fifteen years, the EU decided either that this regional policy was a huge error or that, following the Treaty of Lisbon, that it was no longer needed. Today the Committee of the Regions is a poorly-funded embarrassment in Brussels, with an unknown President (the fourth or fifth EU President?), currently Karl-Heinz Lambert, and the third-smallest budget in the EU, largely spent on itself. The EU will never abolish it, of course, but it will just be gradually pushed further and further to the margins, absent from news releases, ignored, underfunded and unfashionable. Its Presidents and members feature on no ballot papers, and I'll bet there's not more than half a dozen people in the UK who know more than one of our 24 members. Shortly to go.

Yet during its lifetime, it has wasted more money and fomented more conflict than pretty much any other EU cabal. Ambitious regions, in conflict with their national governments, have even established 'embassies' in Brussels, in the most egregious display of snouts-in-the-trough misuse of tax money. Catalunya is one consequence, one that the EU now bitterly regrets.

It is quite possible that Catalonia will gain independence, but not from this referendum, at least not with any legitimacy. It will take a proper referendum, sanctioned by the Spanish government, overseen by observers, absent threat or coercion. 

What a bloody mess. What utter stupidity - Spain's and the EU's. Forgive me, but everything the EU touches turns to shit. This could all have been avoided if skill and experience rather than zealotry and purblind anti-democracy had driven these fools.