There is a fundamental disconnect between the real Catalonia and the Catalonia the political Establishment and its lackey media want us to believe exists.
All of the major Western broadcasters, plus newspapers like The Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times, have repeatedly pumped out the mantra that it is only a minority in Catalonia that support Independence. They have never attempted to explain why therefore Carles Puigdemont is President, and why the pro-Independence parties got 48% at the last Catalan elections while the Spanish Nationalist parties got 39%.
There is a vital point here. The plan of the Spanish government to force new Catalan elections in January is not obviously going to give a different result. The national spirit aroused by the 2014 Scottish referendum resulted in a huge boost for the SNP at ensuing parliamentary elections. The same is likely to apply. Plus, there are indeed societies in which people en masse which will vote for you if you send armoured thugs to bludgeon their grannies. But I do not think that the Catalans are such a society. Catalans are not likely to have been convinced to abandon their hopes by the actions of the Guardia Civil.
So what happens if Rajoy calls new elections and the pro-Independence parties win again, which is highly likely? Social media shows that a great many Catalans believe that Rajoy’s answer will be to ban the pro-Independence political parties and not allow them to contest the election.
That is not as fantastic as it seems. Spanish ministers have been briefing the media that, if Independence is declared, Puigdemont will be arrested for sedition. Two major Catalan civic society leaders are already imprisoned for the same ludicrous offence, and the Head of the Catalan Police is on trial.
One commodity of which Spain is not in short supply is corrupt, Francoist judges. It will not be difficult at all to find a fascist judge who will rule that campaigning for Independence in itself constitutes “sedition”, and that pro-Independence political parties and pro-Independence campaigning should be banned as unconstitutional, an affront to the sovereign, traitorous and other such nonsense. In fact that seems to be the inescapable logic of the Rajoy position.
Indeed, the calling of a new election makes no sense at all unless the supporters of Independence are banned from contesting it. Many other measures – all an undeniable breach of human rights – are being undertaken to try to reduce the capacity of the Independence movement to campaign. TV and radio stations are being taken over by Madrid, websites and social media communication blocked. The banning of pro-Independence parties really is not a very large step further down the road. Meanwhile Rajoy has almost certainly concluded that there is no breach of human rights so blatant that other European governments will not back it as the “rule of law”.
There is no sense in which the current hardline moves of the extremist Spanish nationalists in power in Madrid will end the crisis in Catalonia. They will merely plunge it into a much more vicious phase.
Just when we thought First Strike Fallon was winning the race to be crowned the most psychopathic Tory, with Boris trailing behind him, up comes Rory Stewart on the rails to claim the victory.
How can you say that about someone who was innocently travelling through Afghanistan in local costume in 2001? Obviously he couldn’t have known what was about to happen; he just felt more comfortable in shawal-chemise than in a suit. Not everybody who poses with their finger in their mouth is a psychopathic politician. Obviously some of them have genuinely got a sore tooth.
Certainly, his comments on Brits in Syria shocked me by their callous openness as to what I understand to have been unwritten policy. But as the man sent to ‘sort out ‘East Timor and Kosovo(Guardian), he is perhaps merely stating HMG has no further use for its lower-level ISIS dupes.
It is U.K. Government policy to kill all of the IS
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41717394
freddy,
As you have previously demonstrated significant signs of intelligence, I find it hard to understand your post, unless it was sarcasm. I thought you had risen above the propaganda, and understood what IS/ISIS/ISIL/Al-Qaeda is all about, and who funds them, supplies them with arms..and does air-drops for them, and which section does their White Helmets/BBC crap acting re False Flag Chemical attacks…
If not read this – cos it won’t explain it. Trust ’em to pick on an Ambulance Driver from Oldham and bang him up for 5 years
http://thesaker.is/the-ben-stimson-case-prosecuted-for-fighting-fascism-in-ukraine/
Tony
The Saker talking out his feathery backside again. If Mr Stimson was only there to carry out humanitarian work why the silly macho poses with machine guns?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40612229
The Saker is correct, the conviction was a political one, something you would expect in other countries that the West likes to decry as “totalitarian regimes”; just to illustrate the decay of our “democracy”, George Orwell was lauded for going to fight fascism, these days, he & people like him, faced heavy jail-time, whilst mercenaries get paid to fight whoever, and Brits are of course free to go & fight in the IDF.
No he committed a criminal offence in joining a group violently opposed to a legitimate government. The fact that some people don’t approve of said government is irrelevant, it’s letting him off on those grounds that would be political.
“a legitimate government”
A government that is engaged in a war with it’s own people; isn’t that the pretext that the wars against from Serbia & Libya were based on ?
Interesting though that you are sticking up for a government that encourages this:
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/406991-western-media-ukraine-nazi/
Where were the two royal cowboys when this boar made his maker, not sure whether he should have been shot, but with radiation levels in certain areas being high, due to Chernobyls initial outfall, he would have been excluded from the food chain…..
https://www.rt.com/news/407385-boar-rampage-bank-shot/
I’m still eating frozen fish from the pure waters of the north atlantic. It has gone down in price, £5 for 12 cod breaded steaks. Now marketed as Fukashima extra-portion fresh fish. Sorry that was unacceptable.
‘Unacceptable’ in modern corporate-political speak does not mean ‘bad’; it means something that punctures the dual-messages/ slogan-myths of corporate-political double-speak.
100% TRUE!!!
Catalonia – Spain: Officials ‘won’t follow orders from Madrid’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41719081
Dangerous times for all of Spain.
Someone could get shot.
If Spain, is to take temporary control of the levers of power in Catalonia, the local police will be over-seen by Spain, Spain will guaretee their wages, as long as they tow the new line.
If the local police find themselves unable to tow the new line, they will soon be without jobs/income.
This was how it worked in Crimea, most choose to keep their paid work.
Actually Craig they have gone beyond arresting Puigdemont for sedition, apparently should he make the declaration he will be charged with Rebellion.
More murmurings that Indy minded Parties will not be allowed to stand the very heavy rumour is that they will be ruled unlawful organizations and debarred from seeking public office.
Rajoy is going all in it seems,
In Greece,
the governing Elite,( with the nod from the E.U.) have made a thing out of putting in chains, leaders of the party
Golden Dawn.
So, we know, imprisoning agitating politicos is currently going on in the European Union
O/T Gresham school is proud of its excellence, it is one of the most expensive and prestige schools around. But when it comes to due diligence and safeguarding of pupils, versus the need to advertise and interview and assess a new teacher, they clearly made the wrong decision here.
Nothing to see here, police did not get involved, it was just a little hanky panky with some minors…..
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/behaviour-of-former-norfolk-teacher-who-was-banned-from-classroom-was-never-reported-to-police-1-5245315
Your piece leaves out debate of the following:
(1) Is the will of the people in an area the only consideration for granting independence. If so, how small an area are you willing to concede upon before it becomes ridiculous – my county, town, village, house…..
(2) What about the rights of the rest of the country. Previously they enjoyed unfettered access to those areas and their assets. Independence may now impact their rights.
(3) Can you give an example of a minor political grouping that does not want more power from its larger one. Is this a good thing, and if so, shouldn’t Europe slowly disintegrate into smaller and smaller autonomous units until it becomes impossible to implement any strategic change?
(4) Although I have no opinion as the Catalan situation, I have not heard anything other than we should have independence because we want it….And we contribute a more than we receive back…..yes that is the basis of humanity! Some more coherent argument please!
Kevin,
Since there is a right to self-determination recognised under international law and the Calalan region falls well within the ambit for such a claim – where do your questions 1 to 4 fit in so far as legalities are concerned?
Courtenay
P.S. Not understanding your point.
One of the aims of Collaborative Scotland is transparency. What a superb piece of corporate-politico-pseudo-legal double-speak. Obviously the workings of USUKIS strategy of terror in Syria are transparent. Even if you can see the outlines of their presence like a poisonous jellyfish it is categorically denied and impossible to verify. Now if they called for honesty and clarity everybody would know what was required.
May, Rees-Mogg, Corbyn or David Miliband or whoever is in power when the time comes to takeover the Scottish Parliament in a coup d’état, won’t have to bother taking over the TV and radio stations because they’re already under Westminster control.
reel guid.
Frankly, speaking, Scotland would, more than not, be independent now if it had control over broadcasting. Catalonia has several regionally controlled tv and radio stations.
Westminster will never devolve broadcasting to Scotland, for countless Westminster government’s know fine well the power of propaganda through tv and radio.
Similarly very few newspapers in Scotland, are favourable to Scottish independence, most are foreign owned such Trinity Mirror group etc.
Ros
Just hope the second sentence of your post isn’t about to become outdated.
Likewise reel guid.
I should also add that immigrantion will never be devolved either, the influx of “Johnny Foreigner” is the eyes of Westminster, might tip the balance away from the British nationalists.
Pet food salesman and fantasy economics expert Kevin Hague is finally about to launch his ‘These Islands Ltd’ project this week.
When it was first announced back in the spring it was said that populist historians Dan Snow and Tom Holland were going to be involved. Dan incidently has just crowdfunded a new history tv channel called HistoryHit. HistoryShit more like it if Dan’s pulling the strings.
Anyway this whole These Islands thing is supposedly to explore British identity. Sounds on a par with all these other dodgy projects. Vote No Borders, Scotland in Union, Collaborative Scotland etc.
The Three Wise Monkey’s have a history it seems.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/new-pro-union-think-tank-launched-ahead-of-indyref2-1-4416072
Royal Bank of Scotland
slips deeper into the mire
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41725553
Catalonian apparatchicks said on Monday it was confident all officials including POLICE
would defy attempts by Madrid to enforce direct rule on the region,
in an escalating dispute that has raised fears of unrest among Spain’s European allies.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-politics-catalonia/catalonia-warns-of-civil-disobedience-as-madrid-readies-direct-rule-idUKKBN1CS196
The Catalan crisis has raised fears among European countries that it could spill over to the rest of the continent.
From Scotland to Flanders and Lombardy, the 2007-09 financial crisis, unemployment and migration have allowed anti-EU and populist parties to feed off discontent with political elites and reopen regional divisions.
Two wealthy regions of northern Italy voted overwhelmingly on Sunday for greater autonomy.
At a European summit last week, leaders sought to minimise Spain’s crisis with Catalonia and described the secession bid as a domestic issue.
When there is a run on the banks,
as there will be,
it will no longer be a little local difficulty.
Behind the scenes RAJOY is being given the O.K. to do whatever it takes, to bring Catalonia to heel – quickly.
Expect massed arrests – soon.
The SNP are pro EU. They were in office before the world financial crisis. The Scottish independence movement, including the SNP, is pro immigration.
Reality must be so painful to you.
There are estimated to be 7.4 million foreign born people living in England, equivalent to 13.8% of the population. Every single one of those 7.4 million people could lawfully move to Scotland. The fact that they don’t move to Scotland is because they don;t want to.
In Scotland there are estimated to be 369,000 foreign born nationals or about 7% of the population. This is just under half of the number of Scottish born people who have moved to England.
In Spain then they may go to war to defend the unity of Spain – because they care. There is zero possibility that the English would a finger to prevent Scotland declaring independence.
What is wrong with Scotland?
Another pseudo-intellectual rant, if you ask me. This article misses a good opportunity to explore an interesting question: why the pro-independence parties get the majority of the vote in the elections (i guess it’s because they had other interesting policies too). Instead, he uses this assumption – that most Catalans support independence – to support his own argument, without mentioning the result of the most recent official poll.
Michael
Last person to call me pseudo-intellectual was a Scottish female psychiatrist and her objection was to my complaining about my first wife being unfaithful. the pseudo part of the insult referred to the religious source of my objection, while the intellectual part of the insult referred to my belief that the world was ruled by common-sense. With three very small children I thought it wasn’t a good idea for her to embark on teenage romance.
You may not agree with Craig’s understanding of democracy and you may not like the bloggish gusto of his presentation of his argument, but you should take note that he has not taken down your comment after your insult to his intelligence. He rarely ever does because he never tries to protect himself. He only ever removes a comment if it is offensive to others or might be used indirectly to discredit his arguments.
In this way Craig has an extremely intellectual framework for discussion, which allows him to throw the subject wide open to everyone, trying to get to the deeper levels of human understanding from the emotional intelligence.
My reply to you should be “woof-woof ” because you are like a dog barking in the night. But what’s the point?
Found this video. Allegedly, judges of the Spanish supreme Court celebrating they are putting in prison the chief of Catalan police, Major Trapero, who has no been charged yet for October 1st ” alledge passivity of the Catalan police to prevent the referèndum”
https://t.co/FY7gYBbT57
Needs to be confirmed. Lately we need to be careful on fakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AmDeWdQqpM&app=desktop
Is it true the 60 Tomahaws that were fired into Syria were made in Glentothes?
http://www.raytheon.co.uk/capabilities/products/tomahawk/
The Fife made Tomahawk cruise missiles are to be one of the weapons for the new Global Combat Ship Type 26
which is to be manufactured in Scotland.
If Scotland becomes independent,
in the future, where will all these skilled people work?
Glenrothes
Norton, I mean Freddy.
They’ll still be made in Scotland, don’t forget Trump fired 50 or so on Syria, of course he tipped Putin off first, to evacuate the area, incase any Russian soldiers were killed.
60 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles were fired from the Mediterranean, into Syria.
One went wrong. 59 entered Syria.
TRUMP
“It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread
and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
Not yet proven.
England
Loony
So if Scotland becomes independent, the U.K. will still make warships
but not in Scotland?
Hopefully, these skilled workers will find an alternative role in life, away from manufacturing WMDs.
Meanwhile.
The civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 is retiring at 61, with a £1.8 million pension pot. He will receive £85,000 a year and a lump sum of £245,000
He’s the secretary for the Department for Works and Pensions
His name :Sir Robert Devereux.
No WASPI women style pension for him.
Banning Democracy in Oldham…
https://journal-neo.org/2017/10/21/the-ben-stimson-case-prosecuted-for-fighting-fascism-in-ukraine/
I am going to find out a lot more about this, and hopefully find out what British jail Ben Stimson is in. I want to write to him, and maybe visit him in jail.
I too come from Oldham.
Disgusted with UK Justice – How could you do that….to an Ambulance Driver???
Or are You all Just a bunch of Nazis/Fascists too??
I mean FFS – Even The Judge said and I quote..
“You ultimately did no physical harm to anyone”
“I convict you to 5 Years 4 months in Jail”
Tony
It’s the usual rubbing our noses in it; “we will be complete b’tards and can do what we like so as to deter others who don’t agree as to who are our official friends & who are our official foes”.
Possibly because he wasn’t really an ambulance driver.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40612229
From your BBC link, the Judge called “Stimson’s presentation as a “fighting man” was largely “an exaggeration or even the product of fantasy”.
The truth is as I commented, an absurd severe sentence, to deter others, nothing to do with justice or commonsense proportionality:
“I hope his conviction will send a message to all those who are even considering joining conflicts.”
It was intent that mattered and it would appear his intent went beyond driving the odd ambulance.
Long sentences are intended to act as a deterrent but in this case the maximum he could’ve got was life so five years is really quite light. The fact that he pleaded guilty would no doubt have been taken into account.
“Intent” ! Yes the weasel catch-all, that conveniently can’t & doesn’t need to be proved !
People who have maimed people for life often get less than this guy got for harming nobody, but as has been pointed out here before by others, your sense of empathy is less than zero; maybe if you did five years in prison for driving an ambulance & not harming anybody, you just might feel a little more sympathetic.
Perhaps the judge was asked by MI6 to give them Stimson for a couple of years so they could brainwash him into one of ‘our’ terrorists.
Hypocrisy & double-standards don’t even begin to convey the rottenness of our Orwellian named “Justice System”, still not enough for some to not defend the Establishment:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4998092/Jihadis-returning-Syria-not-prosecuted.html
Oops that was supposed to be a response to Kempe.
MI6 grooms and rehabilitates its own terrorists, who then go on to blow up teenagers in Manchester. This is a dark political trial, not just because he wasn’t one of our governments terrorists but also because Donald Trump has now thrown out those Obama era fascists like Victoria Nuland. IS would never have been defeated under Obama. He is the one who should be in prison, not Ben Stimson.
O/T, but important; it’s not just Craig who needs our help:
http://sayed7asan.blogspot.fr/2017/10/en-soutien-au-professeur-norman.html
Yeh, but Craig’s not in jail yet. I’d quite happily visit him in jail too.
Another Labour MP has disgraced himself. Joining Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery on the increasingly crowded People’s Party naughty step is Jared O’Mara. The winner over Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam has admitted to having posted sexist and homophobic remarks on the internet a few years ago.
Is Tony Blair on the naughty step?
It was invented for him.
Tony Blair has just the trick to fix Brexit woes… another referendum
What an undemocratic scum hole he is
https://www.rt.com/uk/407551-tony-blair-brexit-plot/
The blogger Guido Fawkes was the one who found out Labour MP Jared O’Mara.
Among the remarks O’Mara made – which he has admitted to – there are numerous online put downs of fat women.
With “fat women don’t deserve our respect” being one.
Jared was in a band called the Dirty Rotten Troubadours. One of their songs was entitled “I wish I were a misogynist”. Which included the lyrics “I wish I were a misogynist, I’d smash her in the face”.
There were plenty of online homophobic remarks too. With gay men being called “poofters”. And a description of gays as those “who drive up the Marmite motorway”.
Well Jared really is a fine ornament to the Mother of Parliaments isn’t he?
And we must commend the Labour Party for the rigour of their candidate selection processes.
Leave off. It was 15 years ago ffs and he has apologised.
Guido Fawkes has spoken to a female constituent of O’Mara’s. She claims he called her “an ugly bitch” at a nightclub earlier this year.
Forget about O’Mara
Eddie Izzard to stand again for Labour executive
Communication of the Love & Rage collective about the current conflict
Translation of http://noticiasayr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/comunicado-del-colectivo-amor-y-rabia.html from http://libcom.org/forums/news/catalonia-situation-22092017?page=5#comment-598713
1) We condemn unreservedly the brutal police actions ordered by the central government with the support of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Ciudadanos (Citizens), and which only serves the electoral interests of the PP (People’s Party) and Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes).
2) We completely refuse to support a ‘Process’ inititated and directed by a political caste that is as corrupt and repressive as the government in Madrid and the parties that support it.
3) As a part of the libertarian movement we reaffirm that the objective of anarchism is a world without classes or borders, based on direct democracy and equality.
What is happening in Catalonia is entirely contrary to this: it is cross class and in support of a neoliberal government that is instrumentalising social unrest for its own interests, in the name of an illusory common good and the creation of a new state that would be in the hands of those who previously supported the ‘Regime of ’78’. The demise of neoliberal globalisation has paved the way for protectionism of an identitarian character.
Amor y Rabia considers it fundamental to struggle against capitalism and to concentrate our forces on fighting class society, focusing our activity on the social question rather than the ‘national question’, which turns us into pawns in the internal struggles of rival oligarchies.
Changing bosses is not the same as freeing yourself from them
Communication of the Love & Rage collective about the current conflict – Comunicado del colectivo Amor y Rabia ante el conflicto actual, by Joan Peiro
Translation of http://noticiasayr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/comunicado-del-colectivo-amor-y-rabia.html from http://libcom.org/forums/news/catalonia-situation-22092017?page=5#comment-598713
1) We condemn unreservedly the brutal police actions ordered by the central government with the support of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Ciudadanos (Citizens), and which only serves the electoral interests of the PP (People’s Party) and Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes).
2) We completely refuse to support a ‘Process’ inititated and directed by a political caste that is as corrupt and repressive as the government in Madrid and the parties that support it.
3) As a part of the libertarian movement we reaffirm that the objective of anarchism is a world without classes or borders, based on direct democracy and equality.
What is happening in Catalonia is entirely contrary to this: it is cross class and in support of a neoliberal government that is instrumentalising social unrest for its own interests, in the name of an illusory common good and the creation of a new state that would be in the hands of those who previously supported the ‘Regime of ’78’. The demise of neoliberal globalisation has paved the way for protectionism of an identitarian character.
Amor y Rabia considers it fundamental to struggle against capitalism and to concentrate our forces on fighting class society, focusing our activity on the social question rather than the ‘national question’, which turns us into pawns in the internal struggles of rival oligarchies.
‘Changing bosses is not the same as freeing yourself from them’ no matter what Craig would have us believe.
The Mirror has a story about a new House of Lords expenses scandal. There are 17 peers who between them managed to claim well over £400 000 last year.
Scottish hereditary peer and Liberal Democrat Viscount Thurso received £32 235. Here’s a man from a comfortable background who had a singularly undistinguished 14 years as a Scottish MP. Now he’s claiming that much from the public purse.
MP’s expenses.
John Thurso 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 £50,771
http://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/mp/379/2015
Paul Monaghan 1 June 2016 to 31 May 2017 £87,596
http://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/mp/700
Thurso’s MP career finished in March 2015. Any Westminster expenses he has claimed for since are as a member of the Lords. And as a peer he no longer has constituency duties. So no constituency office and staff and no travelling to and from or around any constituency. A large expenses claim is therefore extravagant.
Monaghan’s travel costs were high, as any MP’s travel costs for the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency are unavoidably high. Since you are a resident there Fred you know that it is the furthest of any mainland constituency from London and is one of the largest too. So the MP has considerable costs travelling round the constituency.
As a resident of Caithness I know he very rarely came here.
And that he was screwing the tax payer for every penny he could.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3851784/EXC-MP-used-taxpayer-funds-pay-brother-SEVEN-WEEKS-worth-overtime-just-ONE-YEAR-amid-criticism-lax-checks.html
In the year 2016-2017 the top ten highest claiming MPs were all SNP.
http://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/all
The 17 peers the Mirror has named whose combined expenses were over £400 000 claimed despite not speaking, submitting a question or sitting on a committee. So what is Viscount Thurso getting paid for?
Records show Viscount Thurso has been present for 38 votes in the House of Lords .
Since June 28th Mhairi Black has been present for only 5 votes in the House of Commons, the lowest of all the MPs. What is she being paid for?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snps-rising-star-mhairi-black-is-bottom-of-westminster-voting-table-hdzs2c5bm
The Mirror also reports that Baroness Adams, a former Scottish Labour MP, claimed £41 287 last year.
In 2009 the Daily Telegraph reported that Labour’s Adams had claimed £200 000 for her first four years as a peer, despite only having spoken in the Lords once.
Spain is prepared to use force against Catalan separatists who defy direct rule, warns cabinet minister,
as Madrid prepares to financially squeeze the life out of the region!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5011349/Spain-use-force-Catalonia-defy-direct-rule.html#ixzz4wPdxZaj7
That seems rather a firm standpoint
The Government of Spain is prepared to cut the Catalan government off from ALL TAX INCOME,
depriving officials of salaries and the means to fund any secessionist campaign.
Meanwhile, Spain prepared on Monday to move on the regional authority’s last outstanding source of revenue – taxes and levies it always used to collect directly – tax on inherited property for example, or university registration fees.
So, cut them off at the knees.
Banks received instructions to strictly control all accounts and bank cards of the Catalan executive.
Well, this has to be with the agreement of the European Union, such a fundamental swathe of financial measures.
Don’t expect any European politicians to openly sing the praise of RAJOY, some may even decry what the Spanisish Government is doing, be sure they are fully behind his moves.
The very existence of the European Union is on the line.
It is possible/likely that the Spanish Government had all these measures and provocations planned, well in advance.
It is possible/likely that the Catalan executive have had their hand forced,
as they knew the stacking up of these financial measures, would remove their chance, to go for independence.
RAJOY has played a blinder.
It’s the grossest hypocrisy that the European Parliament voted last year to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey over that country’s human rights record, yet the EU is tolerating a fascist power grab by Spain, a member state.
There was an interesting perspective by one Guardian commentator yesterday regarding Europe. Not quite sure I share his sentiment on the Holy Roman Empire, but it offers a different context to the Catalonian crisis.
“
This takes too narrow a view. There is a growing crisis is Europe, inevitable because of the very success of the EU, and its continued drive towards greater integration, however fraught with controversy. One order, once the founding order, is resisting becoming the ‘old order’ that has to pass away… Let me explain.
The success of the EU, in particular in its Schengen area, and its growing integration, was at first the result of the individual nation states coming together to found it, largely in the name of preserving the peace, which it has done brilliantly. But EU growth is now hindered by those same states as they cling to an ever more outmoded sovereignty. With the Schengen convention, with the free movement of goods and people, national borders have become irrelevant.
France and Germany may have fought repeatedly in pre EU days over the Alsace: now it no longer matters, aside from economic policy, or local identity. Italy is the result of the Risorgimento conquest (or, in Roman times, of straightforward aggression over centuries), and ‘Britain’ of centuries, in some cases millenia, of aggression against its once native celtic populations. Spain is result of conquest like Britain, and like Britain, dynastic maneuvers. Germany is a Prussian imperial creation. France suppressed local independence and then shattered local identities with the fragmentation of its departments. The list in Europe is endless.
What Europeans have failed to grasp is that within the EU, with just that free movement of goods and people, these imperial states have lost their raison d’être. What practical difference does it make if Catalonia is its own state, and Spain its own state without Catalonia, when within the EU there is no meaningful border, and you can live in Spain, and work in Catalonia, or live in Scotland and work in England, or… ? None, whatsoever. As in the US, it makes no difference if you work in New York City, and live in Connecticut. Yes, in America there is a national citizenship: in Europe, cultural zones more or less organized into imperial states.
Huge problems face the EU: greater democratization— resisted by the national elites; a sharing of the wealth— resisted by the rich nations at the expense of the poor; a rewriting of the constitution so that the EU can meet these obligations of growth— resisted by the national elites, and too often by the people who would benefit who are denied a thorough participation in a democratic EU and so experience it as a foreign bureaucracy (created by the national elites!).
This is just the beginning of a hugely difficult process in Europe. With continued success and integration, the EU becomes a state, not like the American, but the Roman or once meaningful Holy Roman Empire— many peoples, many cities, many varying degrees of statehood, all within and subordinate to a greater whole, made up of cultural zones more than anything else. The difficulty of this is apparent— just look look at the ugly racism and divisiveness deliberately played up by Brexit, at the xenophobia provoked simply by the internal migration of fellow Europeans!— which feeds the ugly ‘blood and soil’ rightwing reactionary, populist movements across the EU. Even in a unitary federal state like the US we see a belated rightwing reactionary opportunist in the White House with no understanding of anything.
This is the just the start of a hugely confused, conflicted time.”
“… belated rightwing reactionary opportunist in the White House with no understanding of anything. ”
President Trump has totally reversed Obama’s ‘eat your own vomit ‘ policy of using violent Islamist terrorists ‘ to gain territory in the Middle-East. His motives for this may be doubtful, such as preparing Syria to become a Greater Israel but that doesn’t qualify him for the insult that he doesn’t understand anything. he understands which side his bread is buttered on if nothing else.
Joking apart, if you can change the world by applying vast emotional stress on people, which was Mrs Thatcher’s technique, and is even now Tory policy for sweeping up us common shite, then obviously they are going to carry on and do it. I survived the Thatcher scourge and I see that all the things she trashed, like union power, like marriage, like an ethical foreign policy, are still needed. We are not very far from a point in UK politics where Jeremy Corbyn might start to put them back. The prospects are better now than they have been since 1979 which is when US-style politics fist walked in the joint.
As for xenophobia, I think you’ll find the panic subsides with mainstream political recognition of the problem. people are not very good at coping with things that are deliberately designed to provoke them by cynical politicians. we feel our politicians should not be working against our interests! Right now Trump is working for me by destroying Islamic State. I don’t say he won’t go on to work against me in the future. I’m saying that the at least we now understand the way that politicians deliberately try to manipulate us.
Almost a month since Jeremy Corbyn tweeted about Catalonia.
The Spanish Government is all set to impose direct rule, with all the fascist thuggery it will inevitably entail.
Corbyn’s People’s Party and Rajoy’s People’s Party don’t appear to be much at odds with each other about it.
reel guid.
What I don’t get about Corbyn, is that as the leader of the British Labour party he constantly preaches solidarity with other Labour movements on these islands.
Yet it would be easier for Corbyn than say Theresa May or Vince Cable to reach out to the PSOE, the Spanish governments opposition, and Spain’s Labour party, and help create a dialogue between Madrid and Barcelona but he hasn’t moved on his position.
Yes Ros. Unless he starts to speak up for democracy we would have to conclude that Corbyn has some ulterior motive for not doing so.
Meanwhile the Tories, just can’t seem to hide their ugly side.
A Conservative the MP and Minister of State for International Trade, has come under fire for tweeting a picture of a German kebab shop.
Adding “How long before we have German Fish & Chip shops.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/GregHands?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
As a UK trade minister he’s going to get battered by the Germans before long.
Another of the Mirror story peers is Old Etonian Tory Lord Glentoran.
A gold medallist at the 1964 winter Olympics in the bobsleigh the Northern Irishman was Tory Shadow Olympics Minister.
He acceded to his hereditary peerage in 1998. Before that he was managing director of multi-million pound business Redbrick Tile and Brick Ltd. So presumably this bobsledder wasn’t short of a few bob. Nevertheless he claimed £19 000 last year for little activity in the unelected House of Lords.
Speaking of peers, the undemocratic, unelected, House of Lords is the second largest upper house on the planet behind the Chinese National People’s Congress.
The undemocratic unelected HoL, is jam packed with wealthy party donors and corporate friends, and failed ex-politicians.
There’s currently around 800 or so peers sitting in the HoL, who enjoy subsidesed canteens and bars. The unelected peers also claim £300 pounds per day just for showing up, though some do not claim the freebie.
According reports, each Lord cost the taxpayer a staggering £83,000 pounds a year, and overall the 800 odd peers cost £67 million pounds (excluding building work) for a financial year.
A link would help.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15141267.Each_peer_costs_the_taxpayer___83_000_per_year/
Ros
Scottish Labour’s Baroness Adams has been a peer for 12 years, has contributed little that anyone can see to the business of the Lords, yet has claimed hundreds of thousands of pounds in that time.
Indeed reel guid, at £83 grand a year excluding food and drink subsidies, it amounts to just under a million quid.
She however is not alone, there are hundreds more unelected troughers in the HoL, costing the taxpayer millions per year.
That’s British democracy in action for you.
A senior EU source, who allegedly leaked info to the Frankfurt newspaper, Allgemeine Zeitung, alleges that British PM Theresa May virtually begged European Commission President Claude Junkers for help regarding Brexit.
It’s alleged that May told Junkers that enemies at home were desperately trying to remove her and undermine her position on Brexit.
It’s alleged that Junkers and other EU leaders, fearing that they might have to deal with the deluded fantasist Boris Johnson, if he became PM, has softened the EU’s stance slightly towards Theresa May, in the hope that they won’t need to deal with Johnson, and if true, who could blame them.
Meanwhile even a soft Brexit will be a economic disaster for Britain, according to the (LSE) the London School of Economics, model on the British economy after a hard Brexit, shows that Britain would lose £430 billion. Scotland would lose £30 billion, and Aberdeen would be the hardest hit city.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15614669.Scottish_cities_will_be_hardest_hit_by_Brexit_with___30_BILLION_loss_if_there_s_no_deal/
Ros
By contrast with the prospect of Brexit. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said the other day that Scotland, independent and in the EU, would resolve a lot of the uncertainties created by Brexit. He said that the UK’s Brexit negotiations were heading for disaster.
Yes reel guid, the whole world knows Brexit will hit Britain hard, except the Brexiteers.
Meanwhile according to this report, if true, it looks like Better Together has briefed King Felipe of Spain on how to scaremonger.
In a interview with French tv channel CNews Marti Anglada, a Catalan delegate to France.
Anglada alleged that King Felipe of Spain personally telephoned the car manufacturer Volkswagon, which is based in Barcelona and told them to get out of Barcelona.
Ah, it brings back memories of 2014, all over again.
Aye. What’s Catalan for ‘threat from outer space’?