Posts Tagged ‘European Left’
Candidatura d’Unitat Popular – a Catalan Left, from Independent Republic to Leaving the European Union.
Països Catalans Today.
The CUP defines its economic platform as socialist and favours the nationalisation of all financial institutions, transportation and communication networks. It also promotes the complete independence of Catalonia from Spain and subscribes to the broad definition of Catalonia as incorporating the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans), which in addition to Catalonia proper include Spanish regions of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Catalan-speaking eastern franja or border region of Aragon and the Catalan-speaking region of southeastern France. The party also favours the withdrawal of an independent Catalonia from the European Union (EU) and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The French site of Ensemble describes CUP’s origins in currents such as the third-worldist, Marxist-Leninist and pro-Basque armed struggle group, the Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans (PSAN) which has more splits and fusions than even the maddest of UK leftist faction and a Marxist Leninist groupuscule, coming from the armed organisation, called terrorist, Terra Lliure. They also list some of the more recent groups which joined in the CUP, some of whom it describes as Trotskyist, such as En Lucha (tied to the British SWP), Corriente Roja (section of the IWL, Morenoist), Lucha internacionalista (La Unidad Internacional de los Trabajadores (UIT-CI) and Revolta Global-Esquerra anticapitalist which has links with the Izquierda anticapitalista and the Mandelite Fourth International,various activist campaigning groups, the original and important Occupy Movement in Spain, the Indignados, (not the US counterpart), the peasant Pagesos per la Dignitat Rural Catalana. Okupas (Occupy, on housing and land issues), self-managed social centres, (CSOA), etc.
They also indicate the key role CUP played in the promoting the right-wing Carles Puigdemont, as President of the Catalan Representative body, the Generalitat.
Ensemble: Catalogne : Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), une organisation « assembléiste » et indépendantiste.
France 24 concurs on their role in pushing the right-wing Puigdemont forward,
He’s the successor to Artur Mas who was pushed out by the far left after Mas was accused of implementing a policy of austerity.
They add, clarifying why he had got elected.
Puigdemont has had to forge a tenuous coalition of separatists (Junts pel Si), made up of a range of parties that extend from the far left to the centre-right, and vary widely on their positions on economic and social issues.
Politicians describe him as a savvy strategist.
“He’s a person who listens a lot then decides with total and absolute liberty,” says his friend and biographer Porta.
Puigdemont doesn’t worry too much about economic or social issues, says José Antich, director of El Nacional, a Catalan online newspaper.
“His priority is independence, independence, independence,” he adds.
He also has to deal with the CUP, which is not part of the official coalition of right and nationalist left but is needed to get voting majorities through the Parliament.
One notes this, as the Financial Times puts it,
Despite its radical roots and positions (which include taking an independent Catalonia out of Nato and the EU), the CUP has so far made common cause with the more centrist, business-friendly elements of the independence movement.
One obvious reason for the alliance between self-styled leftists and the Catalan nationalist bourgeoisie is that although it makes much of being anti-capitalist the CUP puts the official promotion of the Catalan language and National Identity at the heart of its politics. Generously allowing for private use of other tongues, the reinforcement of the cultural texture of the “Països Catalans”, that is including the above “Catalan counties” beyond the existing legal borders, form the centre of its programme (item 5 out of 6).
La defensa de la llengua i la identitat nacionals. Promoció i oficialitat del català en tot el territori nacional sens perjudici de les parles de l’àmbit privat, garantia de la unitat de la llengua, indústries culturals pròpies i autocentrades, reforçament del teixit cultural d’arrel popular arreu dels Països Catalans.
Oddly, or perhaps not, this item is absent from their English language version, which contains this dithyrambic oration,
The CUP’s rupturist position is opposed to the hegemonic Catalanist position, as independence for the country without a breakaway from capitalist institutions is not something that the CUP’s revolutionary position would support. Significantly, the CUP is opposed to the reformist position of the other independentists, as it doesn’t desire social democratic reforms, rather a rupture from the capitalist system.
Other parts of the CUP’s International section include a few articles in Spanish and others in approximate English, (“a hooligan state policy by Bourbon orders”) and French (though I am rather fond of the ” le cinisme (sic) criminel qui nous protège en nous tabassant” though less endeared with “nous nous sommes rebellés contre l’Europe honteuse. En prenant l’humble décision de ne pas reculer”).
Although some claim that it is one of the biggest radical left groups in Europe its own site only lays claim to around 2,000 members, albeit with 385 councillors and 10 MPs in the Catalan Parliament.
D’aleshores ençà l’organització no ha parat de créixer, local, nacional i políticament. A hores d’ara ja compta amb quasi 2000 militants, 385 electes als municipis i més de 150 assemblees locals i assembles o nuclis de suport arreu dels Països Catalans. Les eleccions del 27 de setembre de 2015 van permetre l’entrada de 10 diputades i diputats al Parlament de Catalunya.
There is little doubt that there vote has grown over recent years.
Finally the CUP lays claim to social laws, all of which are laudable, although you can’t help being a bit reminded of European local councils in the 1980s who passed resolutions making their towns and cities “Nuclear free Zones”
The last fifteen laws we have passed in the Catalan parliament have been banned by the Spanish state. But these are not independentist laws — many of them are social laws: for example, a law about sanctuary for those fleeing persecution, a law banning energy companies from turning off people’s electricity, and a law for a higher minimum wage. We want to use our autonomy to improve people’s lives and we are forbidden. People see this and respond. They want to decide the future of Catalonia and that is not possible in the current arrangement.
Luc Salellas – councilor for the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) in Girona and a member of the party’s national executive.
Excellent resolutions…..
Meanwhile the CUP have just demanded that sets a timetable to declare a Catalan Republic (
La CUP pide por carta a Puigdemont que proclame la república catalana)
You can listen or watch these events on the Madrid State’s official Catalan language Radio (Ràdio 4) and Television (TVE Catalunya) services.
More: Candidatura d’Unitat Popular
For more rational politics see:
Charlie Hebdo Has a Laugh at Catalan Nationalists.
Catalans Bigger Bleeding Idiots than the Corsicans. “We Demand a Debate”.
This is all over the Spanish media today.
“¡Idiotez o muerte!” La feroz burla de Charlie Hebdo al ‘procés’ catalán
El Paìs.
The Catalonia based El Periódico (which publishes in Spanish and Catalan) is less enthusiastic, describing the cartoon and editorial with the word – who would have guessed it, “provocative” – but takes it all in good stride.
‘Charlie Hebdo’ se burla del ‘procés’: “Los catalanes, más tontos que los corsos”
Some of the Tweets they publish take exception to the comparison with the violent FLNC, but in our view the journal comes out of this in a good light by indicating this one.
There are too many other reports to signal here, but ask Comrade Google.
The Riss Editorial (pictured on the left, above) is sure to win Charlie new friends as well:
The Catalan independence referendum has shaken Europe. If all the European regions with their own language, history and culture start claiming independence, the Old Continent will soon break up like pack ice under global warming. Given that there are 200 languages in Europe, why not create 200 new countries?
…..“the worst dictatorship the world has ever known, the European Union.”
“Independence. A flamboyant word sometimes hiding less noble concerns.”
“We can almost hear the despicable Margaret Thatcher again: “I want my money back”.
“Besides these mercenary considerations… certain voices on the Left claim …a blow for cultural identity”.
“Why should the cultural identity claimed by Catalans be OK when the Christian identity claimed by European xenophobes isn’t?”
“Right wing nationalism and left wing nationalism have one thing in common: nationalism”
“When Catalonia has broken the shackles binding it to the Spanish Monarchy and the Holy European Empire what will happen?”
“Proud independentists will march through the streets to the sound of drums and fifes, taking themselves for the Durutti column, young girls will throw rose petals at the militants..”
“And when the evening comes everyone will go home and collapse in front of the telly to watch Wheel of Fortune and Barça in the quarter-final of the League. Catalonia will have really deserved that.
And so it goes….
Accusations of Catalan Nationalists Circulating Fake Images as Podemos Shows Positive Alternative.
Parlem, hablemos!
Some light is beginning to appear on the Catalan issue,
Podemos’ Alternative for Catalonia. TXEMA GUIJARRO.
Amidst an increasingly-polarized climate, international press coverage has tended to overlook the position of En Comú Podem, the political alliance which has won the last two general elections in Catalonia. This grouping comprising Ada Colau’s Catalonia En Comú and Unidos Podemos has tried to carve out a middle road in the current confrontation.
It recognizes last Sunday’s vote as a legitimate political mobilization but doesn’t view it as a valid referendum. It also defends Catalonia’s right to decide but favors a plurinational, federal Spain. In this respect Colau, who is Barcelona’s mayor, voted in solidarity with those facing police repression but left her ballot blank.
We, as somebody who wishes the peoples of Spain well, can only endorse the conclusion of this interview,
At times I feel we are at the edge of an abyss. But we have to see the crisis as an opportunity to demonstrate to the Spanish people that there are alternatives. We are not condemned to this collision between Madrid and Catalonia. A key reference for me is Barcelona mayor Ada Colau whose handling of the crisis has been exemplary. She represents the only real point of intersection in the region between those in favor of independence and those opposed—bringing them together around a discourse defending civil rights and democratic freedoms. So yes, there is a positive way out of this conflict but it really depends on us being able to govern, to start changing things in this country from the executive.
But the forces of division and hatred continue to operate.
After the Catalan referendum El Pais published this report,
Fake images from the Catalan referendum shared on social media.
Some photos and videos that were widely circulated via social networks and appeared in the media were not taken on October 1.
Today there are many more accusations of fake images, after the far-right British Daily Mail and Julian Assange circulated claims of widespread Falangist participation in anti-Independence marches.
Le Monde has just published a break down of some of these these falsehoods:
Des images anciennes et des tweets manipulés ont circulé sur les réseaux sociaux pour discréditer les rassemblements de dimanche, selon les médias espagnols.
According to the Spanish media old images and manipulated tweets have circulated on social media in order to discredit Sunday’s marches.
The examples start with the use of photos taken in 2015, one taken in September this year, far from Sunday’s march, the use of a – real – image of people giving a Fascist/Franco salute, in a small group of around 30, to suggest a mass far-right presence, and the image spread by the far-right Mail, taken of a tiny band of extreme-right hooligans coming out of bar as if they were representative of the massive march. .
‘Fexists’ is Catalan for Fascists. This is particularly obvious fakery since the demonstrations took place during the day while this is taken during the night, and it turns out to come from a pro-Franco march, not authorised by the police, which occurred in Madrid during September 2015.
A Spanish Tweet account tries to distinguish the real from the ‘bulo’ false (fake, hoax).
Against Spanish Nationalism and the Catalan Independence Movement.
Left Should Not Pit One National Flag Against the Other.
Against Catalan Nationalism.
“The “nation” should have the “right” to self-determination. But who is that “nation” and who has the authority and the “right” to speak for the “nation” and express its will? How can we find out what the “nation” actually wants?”
Rosa Luxemburg. The National Question.
The Catalan referendum has burst on the European scene without, apparent, warning. That this is not in fact true can be seen in an informative article in the Socialist Workers Party journal, International Socialism, which concludes by putting the issue of Catalonia centre stage ( Héctor Sierra Podemos, Catalonia and the workers’ movement in the Spanish state Issue: 155) That it has been at the heart of Catalan politics for some time is well known; that there is a long history failed negotiation over recognition of the Catalan nation, and, perhaps, more pressing, calls for greater financial and political powers for the Generalitat, failing to recognise the laws that they passed, has become common knowledge in the last week. That the Rajoy government was prepared to act, brutally, on its threats against voting on independence, has stirred deep emotions, far beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
But perhaps a sign of the lack of urgency the issue recently evoked in Spain itself can be seen in the exchange between a leading figure in Podemos, Iñigo Errejón and member of the country’s right-wing government, José María Lassalle on the latter’s Contra el populismo (2017) in El País (9.9.17 and 16.9.17) at the beginning of September.
In this erudite discussion, the Minister of State cites Laclau, Gramsci and Stuart Hall in support of his view that the affective and political “people” has not been broken, and that the “institucionalidad democrática” remains open to the “admirado Errejón”. In Lassalle’s recognition of democratic dysfunctions, alongside a eulogy of European social peace, there is no mention of Catalonia, or of any method of dealing with those his boss considers less “admirable”.
National Popular.
It takes, nevertheless, little imagination to see how many of the ideas circulating in Podemos, of the People, of the National Popular, taken from Laclau, and used, as Lassalle suggests, as a kind of political “cartography”, would become important during the Catalan crisis. Within Podemos the current, Anticapitalistas, “Podemos en Movimiento” (13% at the February 2017 Congress), have long criticised the “populism” of its leadership, which seeks to ‘federate the people” of Spain against the ruling political ‘Casta”. A central charge it that they, both the Errejón tendency (Recuperar la Illusion, bring back the Hope), 34%) and the leader Pablo Iglesias’ grouping, (Podemos para Todas, 51%), have failed to recognise that there are effectively many “peoples” in Spain. (1)
In dialogue with Chantal Mouffe Errejón, has called for a “new democratic national-popular identity”. ”The issue in Spain is whether it’s possible to build a national narrative at the service of subaltern majorities that is also respectful of pluri-nationality and the right to decide.” (2) Translated into the present, this has involved the, entirely reasonable, attempt to open dialogue between the pro-independence forces in the Assemblea Nacional de Catalunya (ANC) and the central government. What this clearly does not do is encourage people to separate, to form a distinct “us” in Catalonia, aside from the wider struggle for an “emancipatory and radically democratic project” and “popular sovereignty”.
It would be interesting to trace how supporters of Catalan’s own path to “popular sovereignty”, or as it would better be described, ‘sovereigntistism’ the belief that the major political social and economic problems of the day be solved by getting one’s hands on the sovereign powers of a state, could perhaps defend some of the original axioms of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s ‘post-Marxism’. That is, the idea that the working class is not the dominant political subject of emancipatory politics, but only one element in the “plurality of agents” brought together by “relations of equivalence” constituting democratic movements and demands, making up the figure of these Peoples pitted against the Spanish State. Some may radicalise the later Mouffe. That the Catalan partisan collective will has overflowed the boundaries of one state, created its own “relations of exclusion” against the institutions of ‘Madrid’. It would be free to create its own agonistic site where, it can create its own “agonistic democracy”, and let the fight against neo-liberalism begin on a new terrain (3)
Collective Will.
But in fact we now have a free for all for those wishing to build a “collective will” against the said administrative structure. Appealing for international support for their cause some Catalan enthusiasts have not hesitated to describe the Spanish state as ‘fascist’ ‘Francoist’, full of loathing for ‘Madrid’, no doubt hinting that one of George Orwell’s most celebrated books was Homage to Catalonian Independence. Perhaps they trust to at least some of their audience’s ignorance of the Siege of Madrid, which fell some months after Barcelona.
Others, apparently more reasonable, have wheeled out the view that Catalan nationalism is welcoming, “Catalan national feeling is like Scottish in that it is “civic”, non-violent, opening impatiently to the new global world. It’s unlike Scotland – and more “ethnic” – in its passionate emphasis on Catalan language, history and culture.” It will not be source of exclusion, but will find its way back to “intimate” ties with Spain. (Neil Ascherson. Catalans are not alone. Across the world, people yearn to govern themselves .Observer. 24.9.17)
Laclau’s study On Populist Reason (2005) deals with the “nature and logics “ of collective identities. He envisaged the possibility of a People out of a plurality of ‘ethnic identities’, as well as its opposite, “ethno nationalism”. Podemos would not be untrue to this way of thinking to attempt the former. (4)
But those on the left pushing the Catalan separatists have other fish to fry. The SWP argues first and foremost for the dissolution of the Spanish state, as a potential springboard for a wider anti-capitalist struggle.
The damage to the Spanish ruling class that the loss of Catalonia would cause is unimaginable; Catalonia makes a large contribution to the state’s revenues, with 18.8 percent of national GDP. The centrality of national unity to the dominant ideology of the ruling class would also turn the event into a political earthquake. A victory for independence would thus precipitate a crisis of unforeseeable consequences, throwing into chaos not only the PP but Spanish capitalism as a whole.
Socialism can only be achieved internationally, but by opening new prospects for the left in Catalonia and by breaking the consensus imposed by fascism in the transition to democracy, Catalan independence would advance the cause of the entire working class. And, if a triumph of the Catalan left would be a positive development for workers in the rest of the state, what would the consequences of its defeat be?
Héctor Sierra Podemos, Catalonia and the workers’ movement in the Spanish state Issue: 155
The Fourth Intentional, reproducing an argument familiar to those who have heard the radical Scottish nationalist refrain of the Break up of Britain are vaguer though equally optimistic for the future of the left, and keen for, as they put it, “the democratic rupture throughout the State”.
In a lyrical vein the FI states,
It is more than a mere historical anecdote that the Catalan independence flag is directly inspired by the flag of the Cuban revolutionaries who defeated the Spanish colonial army on the island in the late 19th century, a defeat that would decisively contribute to the ruin of the first Bourbon restoration. The struggle in Catalonia has certainly hurt the second and a republican victory would allow us to imagine a new rise of the popular movement and an update of the anti-capitalist and eco-socialist perspective in Catalonia, the Spanish state and throughout Europe.
These aspirations are no doubt of comfort to those who, after what El Periodico commentators have repeatedly called a new May 68 – complete with vote – now confront potential economic chaos. Aware of these difficulties the nationalist bourgeois politicians who are running the independence show are divided on their immediate tasks, although the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, looks determined to press ahead with a declaration of independence. Sacrifices to achieve that end are to be made in the name of a possible, not yet visible, anti-capitalism, or more broadly the eternal right to self-determination or, in their own eyes, for Catalunya. What is more precious than national independence and sovereignty?
Many will without hesitation support the wish for negotiations with these demands, hard though the first two may be to put into any specific form. We can be sceptical about Iglesias’ efforts to capture the ‘floating signifier’ of the Patria for the projects of Podemos, yet see in their stand some hopes for compromise. Equally, on some things on which no agreement can be reached: one should do more than just oppose Rajoy and his clampdown, one can moblise against it.
No Sleeping with the Enemy!
But nobody has yet to explain convincingly why the world in general, and the left-wingers in particular, should stand behind the cause of a prosperous region of Spain, led by a coalition of right and left, to ‘take control’ in the name of the People. Rosa Luxemburg reminds us that the ‘right’ to declare this a separate entity rests on the political parties who backed the referendum, Junts pel Sí, held together a coalition of right and left, while the Podemos inspired grouping Catalunya Sí que es Pot abstained, and the other opposition parties opposed it.
This, if carried through, will be an act that immediately divides the Spanish people, gives full rein to populist ressentiment on all sides, and obscures the issues of the different class and political interests behind the pro-independence bloc (not to mention the ingrained corruption of some of its elements). To put it simply, no left worthy of its name enters into systematic long-term coalitions with right wing nationalists. They are, to use a term often cited by Chantal Mouffe, taken from Carl Schmitt, the enemy. (5)
******
(1) A useful account of Podemos, which underlines that Laclau and Mouffe are far from the only intellectual influences on the party is in Chapter 10 La Gauche du 21e Siècle, Christophe Aguiton. La Découverte. 2017.
(2) Page 148 –9. Podemos in the Name of the People. Iñigo Errejón and Chantal Mouffe. Lawrence and Wishart. 2016.
(3) See Agonistics. Chantal Mouffe. Verso 2013.
(4) Page 198. On Populist Reason. Ernesto Laclau Verso. 2005.
(5) For all our sympathy for the Podemos attempt at rational dialogue, the concepts of the People, and the National Popular function in this crisis as signs that confuse debate. See. Debating Catalonia Izquierda Unida MP Alberto Garzón debates the Catalan independence referendum with the CUP’s Pau Llonch. This is a concrete example of how ‘left wing populism’ sliding around on the Catalan national issue obscures a left strategy that gives priority to building a left. Which leads us to reject the strategy of ‘people’ versus “oligarchy”, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ and the Mouffe-Laclau problematic: See: Populisme le grand ressentiment. Éric Fassin. Textuel. 2017.
European left in confusion faced with Catalan ‘Cross Class Unity’ for National Independence.
El Paìs leads today with the story that the right-wing leader Puigdemot will go to the Catalan Parliament on Monday with a possible declaration of Independence.
Puigdemont irá el lunes al Parlament para la posible declaración de independencia
The Spanish daily cites the BBC’s report, Catalan referendum: Region’s independence ‘in matter of days’.
BARCELONA (Reuters) – Spain’s King Felipe VI on Tuesday accused Catalan secessionist leaders of shattering democratic principles and dividing Catalan society, as thousands took to the streets to protest against a violent police crackdown against the banned independence referendum held on Sunday.
The televised speech, a rare intervention by the 49-year-old monarch who is normally silent on politics, was a sign of how deeply Spain has been shaken by the Catalan vote and a police crackdown that injured 900 people.
On Tuesday tens of thousands of Catalans demonstrated in the streets of the northeastern region against action by the police who tried to disrupt Sunday’s vote by firing rubber bullets and charging into crowds with truncheons.
Tuesday’s protests shut down road traffic, public transport and businesses.
Socialist Worker comments,
Some Catalan politicians and pro-independence organisations played down the role of workers and emphasised that the whole nation was out.
The support of small business certainly added to the strike’s impact in key sectors such as food and retail. Public sector bosses told workers that they wouldn’t even lose pay for striking.
But the main bosses’ organisation in Catalonia condemned the strike. It took workers’ organisation to enforce it.
The SWP appears to consider that ‘the workers’ should lead a campaign for independence.
This seems to ignore that the Catalan government which is said to be about to declare independence is led by the right wing, Carles Puigdemont of the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català, PDeCAT.
Andy Durgan has offered this analysis in
Spanish state out to smash Catalan independence referendum
…any decisive shift to the left would mean breaking completely with the neo liberal PDECat. The temptation to accept some form of “national” government is strong, not only inside the left nationalist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (which forms part of Junts pel Sí) but also among some sectors of the CUP.
Such a government would mean more austerity and cuts and this would also reinforce the rejection of independence that already exists among some sections of the working class in Catalonia; in particular workers of Spanish origin.
More specifically, revolutionary socialists should work to build the CUP, defending both its political independence and the need for practical unity with others on the left.
Whatever happens on 1 October, the political crisis that the Catalan movement has triggered in the Spanish state will only get deeper.
The crisis has indeed deepened.
But why should the left, and the Catalans are not shy in calling for support from the left in the rest of Europe, support the goal of independence.
For what end?
Some claim that the roots lie in the way the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal invalidated in 2010 the new autonomy statute (Estatut).
But what is a lot clearer is the demand to free the wealthy region from the ‘burden’ of Madrid.
Linguistic, cultural and a big degree of financial and administrative autonomy, as the name Estatut d’Autonomia de Catalunya indicates, are guaranteed already, even if they have stumbled faced with a hostile central government.
Does the fact that the right-wing PPR, in power in the Cortes, has, in the last few years, thwarted legitimate attempts to extend this make full independence justified? Was the removal of the definition of Catalonia as a “nation” the tipping point?
What of the left?
To Durgan,
For most socialists support for the self determination of oppressed nations is accepted on principle. But in the case of a Catalonia, where the movement appears to be led by the right, providing such support may not seem so clear. For instance, the President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont is a member of the bourgeois nationalist PDECat (European Democratic Party of Catalonia), which, has enforced cuts and austerity.
But the campaign for independence is far from being a mere tool of the Catalan bourgeoisie. While the immediate demand for independence came out of frustration with attempts to reform the Statute of Autonomy, the resulting movement was also shaped in the context of the economic crisis, the emergence of the Indignados movement in 2011 and the return of the PP to central government.
Indeed, but…..the movement’s unity was forged by blaming austerity on ‘Madrid’ and sought a solution in national sovereignty for Catalan which the following only seeks to hide.
The tone of its propaganda and its demonstrations is markedly progressive; talk of a republic that defends social justice and ethnic diversity is central to its propaganda. The main social base of the independence movement is among the Catalan speaking middle and working classes. In contrast, the main employers’ organisations, even those linked to the nationalist right, are opposed to independence.
Durgan does not consider in detail the Republican Left, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, with 9 seats, Puigdemont’s junior allies in the Parlament de Catalunya. Their project for a Greater Catalonia, including parts of France and the neighbouring areas of Spain in Valencia, is above all cultural and “regionalist” carried into a state-building project.
The Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, CUP, with this vote 2015 336,375 8.20% and 10 out of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament, are no doubt significant in holding the “balance of power” in the Parliament.
The CUP, which plays a central role in the movement, is undoubtedly the largest anti-capitalist grouping in Europe at present. Apart from its 10 MPs and 340,000 votes, it has some 370 local town councillors and around 30 mayors. Its militant anti-racism, feminism and internationalism, its opposition to the EU, set it apart from the rest of the left.
The first part of the assertion may well be contested, from the La France insoumise (17 seats on the French National Assembly, nearly two and half million votes in those elections, over 7 million votes, 19,48% in the first round of this year’s Presidential ballot), onwards.
The second part apparently links internationalism with being anti-EU…..
One could naturally go for the maximum and start dreaming of this: Por una Catalunya independiente obrera y socialista, en la perspectiva de una Federación Libre de Repúblicas Socialistas Ibéricas
Back to the mundane real world: what of the actual left, notably Catalunya in Comύ, of Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona,? They have strongly denounced the repression, took part in yesterday’s protests, but hold the view that the October the 1st referendum was a “mobilisation” and call for a real referendum. Podemos, for all that one might criticise Pablo Iglesias’ ‘national popular’ strategy, and efforts to take the ’empty signifier’ of La Patria and shape it to the left, calls for negotiations and dialogue.
Apparently this is confused, because they hesitate to weld together the demand for independence and sovereignty as the key aims for …the left. (L’instant de vérité pour le mouvement indépendantiste catalan).
Perhaps they should keep quiet about issues which oppose the left, root and branch, with the Catalan right, and wait until independence and national sovereignty are achieved.
Better in fact to oppose sovereignty and nationalism, Spanish and Catalan, from the word go.
More background.
The Catalan independence referendum is a smokescreen for other issues. Eleanor Rosenbach. Independent.
The ruling party in Catalonia, PDeCAT, has been plagued with allegations of corruption; debate around which has receded as demands for independence have increased. Spain’s governing party, the Partido Popular, for its part, has often sought conflict as a means of garnering public support.
Both sides in this debate are using the referendum to further their own political agendas. Spain’s governing party, the Partido Popular (PP), is a right-wing party housing a spectrum of thought from neoliberalists to the hard-line right. The ruling party in Catalonia, PDeCAT, is a centre right party of the Catalan bourgeois which has historically been the natural ally of PP and not a traditional supporter of independence. Interestingly, their move to advocate a referendum has stopped their support from dropping in recent months.
Alongside this, neither the national government nor the Catalan parliament are strangers to corruption in politics. PDeCAT has been plagued with allegations of corruption, debate around which has receded significantly as demands for independence have increased. PP, for its part, has often sought conflict as a means of garnering public support. Positioning this referendum and the spectre of independence as a threat to Spanish citizens and their economic future – as well as tugging on the strings of nationalist patriotism in demanding the continued unity of Spain – PP has engaged widespread support. In recent days, Spanish flags have poured from windows and balconies, and in towns throughout Spain people have cheered the Civil Guard – Spain’s law enforcement agency which operates on military lines – with football chants advocating the defeat of the opposition.
Of wider interest:
El Paìs reports, There’s fake news in Catalonia too.
After a month of intense activity, primarily on Twitter, these pro-Russian profiles have managed to successfully place the secessionist challenge among the most relevant issues in international politics on internet forums. But the issue has not been presented as a dispute between the majority of Catalans who want to decide on their independence and the rest of the Spanish people, but rather as a crucial part of a crisis in the model of Western democracy and the European Union as an institution. Officially, the Kremlin has stated time and again that the referendum is an internal Spanish affair. However, the accounts that less diplomatically promote the Russian government’s interests on social media spoke yesterday of the EU’s imminent decomposition.
Nigel Farage: Catalonia Demonstrates EU Democratic Failure.
Main unions’ statement, “CC OO and UGT are not calling the general strike for October 3,” said the country’s top two unions in a joint release. “Our organisations in Catalonia are encouraging participation in protests against the excesses committed on October 1. In no way are we going to support positions that provide backing for the unilateral declaration of independence”
“The regional government and Barcelona City Hall are allowing their employees to strike today without docking them the corresponding day’s pay, as would usually be the case for a stoppage.”
“All three production lines at the Seat carmaking plant in Martorell (Barcelona) are working at full speed. The factory has not been affected by the general strike and only a reduced number of employees have decided to stay home, said the works council.”
The repression in Catalonia continues to have a wide international fall-out.
“Right-wing British politician Nigel Farage expressed support for the Catalan separatists’ cause inside the European Parliament, where he strongly criticized the Spanish government over the events of last Sunday. Esteban González Pons, leader of the Spanish delegation in the European People’s Party group, said that it is the far right that supports independence in Catalonia.”
In Catalonia we have seen how the EU does ‘democracy’. Why can’t Remainers see it too?
Telegraph.
Labour’s Great Leap Forward.
Labour’s Great Leap Forward.
The 2017 Labour Party Conference was a success. Above all a series of policy decisions, on ending PFI, re-establishing public ownership of key sectors, rail and utilities, represents the first serious challenge to the regulative stand that has dominated European social democracy since the 1980s. It strikes at the neoliberal principle that as far as possible the functions of the national and local state should be hived off to private enterprise. Decisions in favour of union rights replace the idea that the workplace is a place of creative energy with only accidental conflict that can be sorted out with a minimum of legislation. Government intervention in the economy has been re-established as a principle. Taxation will be rebalanced in favour of the less-well off. The Health Service will be regenerated, free of the burden of hived-off services.
Labour has taken the first steps towards refounding social democracy and democratic socialism within a common framework. That is to bring together the aspiration for Crossland’s more just form of distribution (The Future of Socialism. 1956) with the long-standing socialist commitment to public ownership and an end to the “automatism of the competitive capitalist economy” that Aneurin Bevan advocated (In Place of Fear. 1952) One can only hope that new policies for social security, afflicted by the disaster that is Universal Credit, at present a site under construction, will receive the same attention.
The New Synthesis and its Limits.
Labour has not resolved its divisions on Europe, making claims about a new consensus – after a vote on the issue, including Free Movement – was avoided. Ideas that the EU would forbid public ownership, even that the presence of migrant workers – whether used by employers or not – is a problem were floated by the leadership.
The claim that competition regulations automatically rule out all forms of public ownership is clearly false, as this article indicates, Nationalisation Is Not Against EU Law. The associated theory, that a sovereign Parliament under Labour control will be freer to make its own economic policies under Brexit, remains. The view that ‘market forces”, in the shape of holders of government bonds, pounds, banks and financial institutions, will weaken in a country outside the EU is not widely held. It is unlikely that the “deep state” of international capitalism is kinder, or more open to influence, than the pooled sovereignty of the European Union.
The other element in Labour’s ‘synthesis’ between different strands of left thinking, human rights, is represented in the stand taken against anti-Semitism. Its persistence on the fringes has to be confronted. Controversy will continue on international issues, with a small, but entrenched, section of the party convinced of the merits of backing any enemy of the West.
The regeneration of the party has been accompanied by the growth of Momentum, a significant influence of Labour delegates. This has brought to the fore newer ideas, which some trace to the ‘alter-globalisation’ movements of the 21st century’s first decade. Perhaps some Momentum activists are influenced by “intersectionality” (drawing together a variety of fights against oppression) and a leading figure from that time, invited to their Conference event, Naomi Klein and her commitment to the Leap Manifesto, a call for “energy democracy”, “Caring for the Earth”and restoration, in Canada, to the “original caretakers of this land” (No is not enough. 2017). Others on the European left make a more general point. For Christophe Aguiton the network has helped Labour regenerate, capturing within its own structures the kind of social discontent about austerity and radical politics associated with Podemos in Spain. (La Gauche du 21e Siècle .2017)
Labour’s mind will now turn to electoral strategy. Some will be concerned with gaining support amongst those, often Northern and working class, who backed Brexit. Influenced by David Goodhart’s distinction between “anywheres” and “somewheres” Labour should now concentrate on winning over the rooted, provincial electorate, disaffected with both austerity and cultural change, the ‘left behinds’ who reject the “metropolitan elite”. (The Road to Somewhere. The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics 2017). To some left-wingers this tallies with a version of identity politics, in which working class culture, embodying virtue, resists cosmopolitan liberalism – the EU. This electorate is “more real” than, say, the Canterbury students who helped get a Labour MP into Parliament in a Tory safe seat. That layers of the Somewheres have cast their ballots for UKIP may perhaps explain the Conference declarations against migrant workers.
Left blocs.
Bruno Amable and Stefano Palombarini deal with dilemmas for the French left many of which echo these issues, L’illusion du Bloc bourgeois (2017). Written in the run up this year’s Presidential election the authors race the steady erosion of the social ‘bloc’ which tied together the electorate of the French left, public sector workers and the working class.
Amable and Palombarini trace how the interests of this bloc, in workers’ rights, social protection, raising living standards, all enveloped in policies of state intervention, were eroded by successive ‘Socialist’ (that is, Parti Socialiste) led governments since the mid-1980s. The 1983-4 ‘turn’ to market driven policies, under the Mitterrand Presidency, was marked by the ideology “modernisation” which projected onto the construction of Europe the domestic priority for liberalising the economy. It weakened their base, undoing the assent for the party.
This modernising turn shook up workplace relations, gave priority to ‘flexibility’, greater power to financial markets, and has had a direct impact on people’s lives, their career paths, their job security, and sapped their ability to negotiate better terms and conditions. Rather than cultural shock at the ‘new’ – reactions to greater social liberalisation, and to immigration – has eaten away at left support. In other words, it’s not that the ‘Somewheres’ (known in French as ‘la France périphérique). are reactionary, they cannot recognise themselves in a political party – or electoral alliance – which does not meet their goals. The fate of the PS, reduced to dust in this year’s elections, is the result of a long process in which their leadership has failed to listen to their voice, and objective needs.
Modernisers.
That British ‘modernisers’ around Tony Blair appealed to ‘globalisation’ rather than the European Project illustrates that the EU is not the convenient target for all the faults of neoliberalism that some suggest. Blair’s own strategists, less worried about left-wing competitors than the French PS, and keenly aware of Labour’s monopoly of the left-voting working class, found their own worker figure. This was the “aspirational” worker discussed by Philip Gould, as well as by Roger Liddle and Peter Mandelson (The Unfinished Revolution. 1998, The Blair Revolution. 1996).Labour could only secure of a majority for its own ‘left bloc’ by reaching beyond its traditionally organised workers, public and private, to this electoral pool. Seemingly unconcerned with the less attractive effects of flexibilisation and marketisation, these figure were to be equipped with new skills to compete on the “global market”. The welfare state was resigned to be a ‘launch pad’ for employment, not a ‘safe home’ for the causalities of capitalism, or for those in need, the basic right for all for a decent life. That we now see people in absolute poverty living on our streets shows the way this has turned out.
Yet the result appears the same. After the 2008 Banking Crash the appeal of unfettered markets waned; the ‘bloc’ behind Third Way modernisation cracked. There was not enough money, apparently, around to shore up the remaining public and organised union base, while the ‘aspirational’ workers looked to those who embraced austerity wholeheartedly. Not surprisingly, as Amable and Palombarini, argue for France, a real problem is that the section of the base which has been shaped by the opportunities which better social protection, the welfare state, social security, abstains.
In France there have been efforts to rebuild the ‘left bloc’ around the ‘Sovereigntist’ (reasserting French national state power over the EU) or ‘Left Populist’ line of federating the People against the Oligarchs. The nature and the future of this attempt, around the figure of Jan-Luc Mélenchon, is not our concern here, except to note that half-hearted populist efforts by Labour leaders to evoke populist themes, which draw on “resentment” at oligarchical – business and financial – power have not been met with success.
Labour’s Path.
Labour’s strategy sets out a different path. It is already a movement, with trade union, large constituency parties, and deep roots in civil society. It is not an appeal to an abstract ‘construction’ the people, or heavily dependent on a Web network. It is policies that are developed for, and by these constituencies that Labour needs to win. Two themes stand out: social ownership and equality. They are shaping into a framework that could take them up. That is to expresses both the social democratic goal of “society protecting itself” (Karl Polanyi), and the radical aspiration for democratic ownership, and that the workplace becomes a place where people have rights and are not the objects of flexible markets. Both point, it hardly needs saying, to far more radical changes to come.
There are many many other cases of people cashing in on the heart-rending crisis, notably from the new best friends of Catalan nationalism on the left and the howls from Scottish nationalists.
But this from Farage sticks in the Craw.
In fact the EU is neither designed or officially capable of mediating in this kind of dispute, as El País points out in relation to an appeal from the Catalan secessionists to do so.
By Contrast, for a serious article by a well-informed Spanish Speaker, see:
Mike Phipps, An Independent Catalonia. Labour Briefing.
The Repression is revolting.
The result is to spread anger, and hatred of the Spanish PM Rajoy, who is increasingly isolated, and living in his own world, as Libération comments today:
But it is hard to see anybody, for all the emotional charge, taking seriously a result that shows 90% of voters, in a Referendum organised by nationalists, supporting separatism (though apparently this lot, the International Election Expert Research Team do, for reasons which are beyond me, with enormous potential for irregularities, and this, from El Pais, This democratic fraud is a mockery, and no one should give it legitimacy with their participation.
Le Monde interviewed some of the abstainers, and a young waitress who went to vote when she saw the repression – but she cast her ballot against the ‘utopia’ and the false promises of the separatists,
In a series of tweets (hilo, thread) Pablo Iglesias sets out a rational, and in our view the best response:
Most recently he has reiterated his call for dialogue.
El hilo de Pablo Iglesias sobre lo que ocurre en Catalunya y España: “El PSOE debe rectificar”
He condemns the repression, Rajoy and the stand of the PSOE. Iglesias advocates a consultation of the Catalan People, (Podemos says that there should be a full state supported referendum with 3 options – including the one they favour which is “pluri-national” model for Spain with different solutions for Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, regions with the strongest nationalist identity – but not separate nation states) and says does not wish them to leave Spain, he wants a country with the Catalans..