Quote Originally Posted by Cataplana View Post
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I'm not entirely sure, but I think the Spanish constitution is less than 50 years old. From what I read recently, there are a lot of similarities with the Catalan situation and ours.

What is strikingly different is that Spain is not a United Kingdom like ours. Scotland and Ireland entered it as settled sovereign nations, one by choice one by a more difficult route.

There is an act of union that clearly charts that merger etc. I'm sure Scottish nats can describe this much more accurately than me. From what I can see, there is no Spanish equivalent, and what constitutes Catalonia has been fluid over the centuries.

Allowing the Catalans a referendum opens the door to even less solid "nations" such as the Basques to agitate for seperation.
The Basques are arguably more solid than the Catalans and both are arguably more solidly "nations" in the old ethnic/linguistic sense than Scotland is, although they don't have as simple a history as Scotland's several centuries as an independent kingdom. But delving into that would require its own thread I think!

The Spanish constitution dates from the transition to democracy following the death of Franco in the 70s. The context of that was things had to move very carefully given they had a restless military in a state of semi-alarm over giving up power. And that military was still led by Franco's civil war and aftermath Generals. No idle threat either, there was an attempted coup in 1981 featuring gunfire in the chamber of the Spanish parliament. So a constitution involving self determination for Basques and Catalans was never even remotely on the cards and in fact their constitution enshrines the "indissoluble unity of Spain".

The Basques and Catalans did get "autonomous communities" and the devolution has increased bit by bit over the years. The current Catalan movement for independence really got going following the conversion of the formerly devolutionist-but-more-powers centre-right Catalan party, the CDC, to independence. This happened after they agreed a new devolution settlement with the Spanish government but it was ruled unconstitutional and struck down by the Spanish courts in an action brought by the PP (Spanish right wing party with its roots among Franco's followers)*. There is a somewhat more cynical explanation in that some of the CDC's leading lights were at the centre of a corruption scandal at the same time, and this was a handy diversion. Both things are probably true.

The Spanish parties (PSOE, PP and C's) are now trying to outdo each other as more hardline anti-independence than each other. There is no sign of a political solution unless the Catalan people give up on pro-Indy parties.

* our equivalent would be the SNP agreeing a devolution settlement with a UK lab govt, the Tories going to court to get it stopped and the courts ruling it unlawful.