The international quest for self-determination

With a hat tip to Frankly, here is a video by Alfred Bosch, the leader of the ERC group in the Spanish parliament, on independence for Catalonia.

     

For those that want figures, I've posted details of previous opinion polls here and here. The latest CEO poll was published a fortnight ago and shows that support for independence is still solidly in the middle 50s

If a referendum on the independence of Catalunya were to be held tomorrow, what would you do?

Vote for independence ... 54.7% ... (was 57.0%)
Vote against independence ... 20.7% ... (was 20.5%)
Abstain ... 17.0% ... (was 14.3%)
Other responses ... 1.1% ... (was 0.6%)
Don't know ... 5.4% ... (was 6.2%)
Won't say ... 1.0% ... (was 1.5%)

Question 39, page 23

The Catalans deserve all the help we can give them in internationalizing their quest for self-determination. So I have to say that I was ashamed of what Carwyn Jones said when he met with Artur Mas, the president of the Catalan parliament, in Barcelona on 1 March.

     

It is dim-witted and lazy to say that Catalunya's desire for independence is something that should be "negotiated" between the Catalan and Spanish governments when it is now quite clear that there is absolutely no possibility of the two governments reaching an agreement.

What he should have said was that the people of Catalanya have a right to democratic self-determination, and that the will of the Catalan people is what ultimately matters.

He would have found it very useful to have stood firmly beside Catalunya on the principle of self-determination rather than inter-governmental negotiation, for his own government is going to need all the help it can get when it comes to devolving more matters to Wales from an intransigent central government that is only interested in keeping its hold on powers like policing, even though this is clearly something that people in Wales want to see devolved.