The more than seven million people of Catalonia, Spain’s most prosperous semi-autonomous region, have shown overwhelming support for a democratic and binding referendum on independence, and in a recent unbinding referendum more than 80% of the region voted for full separation from Madrid. With remarkable parallels to the debate in Scotland, those in favour of Catalan autonomy have shown that the arguments in favour of independence hold water. The difference is that London, arguably foolheartedly, allowed the Scots to have their referendum, and Madrid will not. Much has been learned in Spain from the Scottish independence campaign. Both London and Madrid have learned that regions of between five and seven million people can and do make viable and prosperous nation states, and they do have the political will to challenge the status quo. Less than three percentage points stood between the preservation of the United Kingdom and the separation of Scotland; a fact that will not be forgotten (or left unpunished) by Westminster. What Spain has seen in the past number of days is that if the same chance is offered to Catalonia – it will leave. Spain’s answer, as will be the case in England, will be to use the democracy of the national parliament to silence the democracy of the regional parliament. Democracy has become the greatest enemy of the modern democracies. To this point the ruling Establishments have had a greater degree of control over their ‘democracies,’ but with the democratisation of democracy itself the power of the ruling powers has been completely undermined. We are left in a stand-off to see how long it will take the Spanish government to give democracy to the people of Catalonia. One thing is for certain – the longer it delays, the more certain independence will become.
Emerald News Network 
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