Comments on: Why has an independence movement flourished in Catalonia but declined in the Basque Country?

By: uglyfatbloke

uglyfatbloke — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 23:18:17 +0000

Will..the short answer is ‘no; they have no diplomacy or common sense’. he thing is, they don’t give a damn either. The political class does not like the people; they just like to tell us what we’re to do and how we ‘re to live. This was not always he case. For all their faults, leaders like Attlee and MacMillan loved the people. Leaders like May and Corbyn do not. That’s one of the reasons (apart from personal self-interest) that they are so vehemently opposed to democratic reform.

By: Will

Will — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 08:41:49 +0000

I feel that if the Madrid government had allowed an official vote on Catalan independence at the beginning of any signs of trouble, the vote would have ended the same as it did the previous time with a comfortable win for the Spanish–however, big egos got in the way and they now have this difficult situation to try and sort out before it turns really sour.
What is it with modern politicians? Do they have no diplomacy or common sense?

By: Alasdair Macdonald

Alasdair Macdonald — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:32:47 +0000

My wife and I live in Glasgow and we support independence for Scotland. We were in the Basque Country in 2014, a few months prior to the referendum in Scotland. There was great interest in what was happening in Scotland from local people whom we met and sympathy for the recreation of an independent Scotland. In Eibar, the train we were on stopped just above the football stadium (Eibar are in the top football league in Spain) and on the walls behind each goal there were huge murals of the Saltire and the words in Euskera, ‘Scotland the Brave’.

Although politically a part of Spain, the impression we formed was that Spain was elsewhere. The local people clearly believed by their actions that they were in charge of the Basque Country.

I think that the violence of ETA, which was still a recent memory, had an impact on the people. They did not want that kind of thing to happen again. I think Ms Gray’s conclusion is pretty sound.