It’s just possible that this weekend, one of Europe’s most important nations will start to break apart.
The people of Catalonia, the richest region of Spain, will be voting on Sunday in an election which may – and I repeat, may – set them on a path to independence.
Just like Scotland, you may think. Well, no, not really. First because the central government in Madrid is most unlikely to give its approval for the holding of a referendum on Catalan independence, and second because, if the opinion polls are right, there is in Catalonia, unlike in Scotland, a pro-independence majority.
And that’s something new. Last September, on Catalonia’s national day, huge crowds took to the streets of Barcelona – some estimates put the number as high as two million – to call for independence in an unprecedented demonstration of fury at what is seen here as Madrid’s contemptuous, even insulting, attitude towards the people of this immensely proud nation.
In part, this nationalist fervour is a by-product of the European economic crisis. Catalans contribute substantially more to Madrid’s coffers than they get back, and, they claim, are being asked to make far bigger financial sacrifices than the central government to meet the demands of Spain’s creditors.
Last night, I stood in a magnificent square in the heart of old Barcelona, gazing up at an eternal flame flickering at the top of a soaring metal sculpture. It’s a memorial to the Catalan fighters who died fighting to defend the city in 1714, against the besieging Spanish and French armies. Catalan nationalists will tell you that today, nearly 300 years later, they’re still fighting for the same cause.
Like their Scottish nationalist equivalents, Catalan independence campaigners insist that their new nation would remain a member of the EU and would be a good neighbour to the country from which it had broken away.
One businessman here told me the relationship between Madrid and Barcelona is like a marriage that has irretrievably failed. But when I asked him if divorce is really the only answer, he replied that unfortunately one of the parties to the marriage is refusing to consider one. Madrid, he said, is simply unable to accept the reality of a partnership that has broken down.
The reason all this matters far beyond Spain’s borders is that the Catalans are not the only Europeans itching to form their own independent state. Quite apart from those Scots who favour independence, what about the Corsicans of France, or the Padanians of northern Italy? They will all be watching closely on Sunday.
It’s not as if the EU isn’t facing enough troubles as it is. There’s the new budget to be agreed, and of course there’s still a very real prospect of more financial turbulence over Greece’s debts and, yes, Spain’s too.
The last thing the Spanish government wants is to be thrown into a major constitutional crisis following this weekend’s election. Catalan leaders insist they’re not spoiling for a fight, but they are insisting on being heard.
If the election results in a clear majority in the regional parliament for parties that favour either full independence or substantially enhanced autonomy – and that’s what the opinion polls are suggesting – the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, will be faced with a stark choice.
Either he starts negotiating with the Catalans to see how many of their demands he can meet, or he faces them down and dares them to do their worst.
Right across Europe, many of his fellow EU leaders will be watching anxiously to see which way he jumps.
I’ll be on air tonight, Friday, from Barcelona, with an extended report looking ahead to the election and analysing the likely repercussions for the rest of the EU. I hope you’ll be able to tune in, or catch up later via iPlayer.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Friday, 16 November 2012
16 November 2012
Perhaps
you remember the time, long, long ago, when we used to talk of something called
the Middle East peace process.
It
was a time when Israeli and Palestinian officials would sit down and negotiate,
not very successfully, admittedly, but in the hope that they might be able to
find a way to resolve their many deep-seated differences about how to share the
bit of the Levant that they both call their homeland.
Last
night, in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, many thousands of people,
Palestinians and Israelis, lay awake in their beds, listening for -- and
dreading -- the sound of an incoming missile or rocket. There is no peace
process any more, nor has there been for several years; in its place there is
either a vacuum, or war.
Next
year will mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo peace accords, a
moment when, just briefly, many Israelis and Palestinians believed there might
be a chance of coming up with a way to live in peace, side by side.
The
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (together
with Israelis Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin) and took up residence in the West
Bank city of Ramallah. He died eight years ago, and now they're digging up his
body to see if he was poisoned by the Israelis.
Why
did the Palestinian group Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip for the
past five years, unleash a barrage of more than 100 rockets against Israel last
weekend? Why did Israel choose to respond with its most violent military
onslaught since its war in Gaza four years ago?
According
to the analyst Hussein Ibish, of the American Task Force for Palestine, whom I
interviewed on the programme last night, Hamas hardliners needed to prove that
they still have the stomach for a fight, even after five years of trying to be
a quasi government, looking after sewers, and power supplies, and health and
education. And perhaps they also wanted to force their Muslim Brotherhood
patrons in Cairo to come off the fence and back them as the legitimate
representatives of their people.
As
for the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Daniel Levy of
the European Council on Foreign Relations, who was also on last night's
programme, with an election coming in January, Mr Netanyahu may well have
caculated that a short, sharp military adventure would do him no harm at all at
the polls. It will certainly divert voters' attention from Israel's deep
religious-secular divide, which has been a dominant political theme for the
past year.
If
this all sounds cynical, well, I'm sorry, but there's more to come. The Israeli
newspaper Ha'aretz says the Hamas military commander whom the Israelis killed
on Wednesday, Ahmed al-Jaabari, had been for several years Israel's go-to man
in Gaza. Apparently, he was the man who kept the rockets on their launchers,
who kept the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit alive, and who eventually,
just over a year ago, negotiated Shalit's return to Israel in exchange for more
than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
According
to Ha'aretz, Israel eventually decided that Jaabari was no longer fulfilling
his side of the bargain: too many rockets were once again being fired from Gaza
into Israel. The message, said Ha'aretz, was simple and clear: "You failed
-- you're dead."
So
now what? Well, we know the script, unfortunately, because we've watched this
drama many times before. Over the next few days -- maybe a week, maybe two --
more people on both sides will die. More people will live in fear, and more
will have reason to hate their adversaries.
Eventually,
a ceasefire will be agreed. Israel will say it has largely destroyed the Hamas
arsenal of rockets and has seriously weakened its military capacity. Hamas will
say it has withstood yet another onslaught by its far more powerful enemy, and
will salute the resolve and steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
I
remember asking a senior Israeli peace negotiator many years ago if he thought
the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would ever end. "Oh
yes," he said. "It will end when we grow tired of killing each
other's children."
That
time, it seems, has not yet come.
Friday, 9 November 2012
9 November 2012
So
was it "los Latinos que lo ganó por Obama"? (trans: the Latinos who
won it for Obama)
Or
was it the African-Americans? Or the young voters? Or the women? As always in
elections, the numbers tell the story. Barack Obama won 71 per cent of the
Latino vote, 93 per cent of the black vote, 60 per cent of the youth vote, and
55 per cent of the women's vote (67 per cent of unmarried women).
Mitt
Romney got most of the white votes, and did best among older, white males. The
problem for the Republicans, though, is crystal clear: there aren't enough
white voters any more to bring them victory -- they now make up just 73 per
cent of the total electorate, down from 77 per cent eight years ago, and the
numbers are falling further year by year.
Ten
per cent of American voters are Hispanic; 13 per cent are black; 20 per cent
are under the age of 30. No party can win without their support. As one
Republican strategist put it after the results were in: "Demography is
destiny."
But
here's another statistic that I found particularly telling: 81 per cent of
voters who said they were backing the candidate who "cares about people
like me" went for Obama. In other words, to win an election, you have to
be able to persuade voters that you understand them, their problems and their
worries.
They
don't have to like you -- Margaret Thatcher, for example, never did well in the
"likeability" polls, but she did speak a language that resonated with
large numbers of British voters. That's why she won three consecutive
elections. And that, the numbers suggest, was a major factor in Barack Obama's
re-election victory on Tuesday night.
By
the way, while we're on the subject of numbers, I would urge you to take with a
large pinch of salt all the stuff that's been written this week about America
being more deeply split down the middle than ever before. The numbers tell a
different story.
Barack
Obama won 50.4 per cent of the popular vote on Tuesday. Compare that to the
50.7 per cent George Bush won in 2004, the same proportion that Ronald Reagan
won in 1980, or the pencil-thin 50.08 per cent majority that Jimmy Carter won
in 1976.
The
truth is that the US has been split down the middle for decades. Which means
that you need only a small number of voters to shift allegiance -- or for the
country's demographic make-up to change (see above) -- for the White House to
change hands.
So
is it all over for the Republican party? I doubt it -- after all, just eight
years ago, George W Bush won 40 per cent of the Hispanic vote, and with a
number of rising Hispanic stars in their ranks, there would appear to be no
real reason why Republicans can't start working to rebuild some of that support
between now and the next Presidential election in 2016.
Those
of you with long memories may remember how during the 1980s and early 90s,
after eight years of Reagan, followed by four years of Bush Senior, it became
fashionable to say the Democrats would never win an election again. Then along
came a man called Bill Clinton, younger, cooler, and saxophone-playing, who
turned the Democrats into the New Democrats, and charmed his way to the White
House.
Something
remarkably similar happened in the UK -- Labour was frequently written off
during the Thatcher years, but then along came a man called Tony Blair,
younger, cooler, and guitar-playing, who turned Labour into New Labour, and
charmed his way to Downing Street.
(A
Clinton strategist at the time was reported to have told Labour what the secret
of the Clinton makeover had been: "Keynesianism, plus the electric
chair.")
History
teaches us that parties can re-invent themselves to match changing social
realities. So here's a mini-prediction for you: keep an eye on Spanish-speaking
Republicans, men like Marco Rubio of Florida, who may very well play an
increasingly visible role over the next couple of years.
And
here's one other mini-prediction: I doubt the Republicans will ever again
choose a multi-millionaire venture capitalist as their Presidential candidate.
I
still remember the words of a retired factory worker in deepest rural Ohio,
whom I met during my recent US road trip: "As long as rich men run this
country, it'll be a rich man's country. And they won't do anything for people
like me."
Friday, 2 November 2012
2 November 2012
You
may as well start thinking about it now, because it's beginning to look as if
before too long, you're going to be asked to vote in a referendum on Britain
and the EU.
Not
this side of the next election, I admit, but my strong hunch is that all three
major parties will have something in their manifestos come 2015 about being
committed to a referendum. And that means, regardless of the election outcome,
a referendum there will be.
Perhaps
it's not before time. For the best part of 20 years, ever since the ructions
over the Maastricht Treaty, British politics have been conducted in the full
knowledge that an unspoken truth was lurking in the Westminster undergrowth:
this country has still not made up its mind about what it wants its
relationship to be with its neighbours across the Channel.
The
trouble is that as soon as you start asking questions about it, more questions
arise. Do you want the UK to remain in the EU? Well, you may respond, that
rather depends on whether you mean the EU as it is now, or the EU as it may
become over the next decade.
Would
you like the UK to leave the EU but retain a close trading relationship with
it? Well, that depends whether you have a Norway model in mind, or a
Switzerland model. (Believe me, they're different …)
Last
Wednesday's vote in the House of Commons, when the government was defeated on
an amendment seeking a commitment to cut the total EU budget, was a wake-up
call. Europe is back on the Westminster agenda, despite all David Cameron's
efforts since he became Tory leader seven years ago to shove it in the back of
the cupboard and close the door tight.
Every
time voters are asked what issues matter most to them, Europe comes way down
the list. The economy, immigration and the NHS are the issues they highlight --
Europe, according to one recent poll, was identified by only 15 per cent of
voters as an important issue facing the country.
The
UK's net contribution to the EU this year (ie what it pays in, minus what it
gets back, minus the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher) comes to just a
shade under 7 billion pounds. That compares to around £104 billion that's spent
on the NHS.
EU
enthusiasts argue that the benefits the UK gets from membership are substantial
compared to the relatively modest cost: a say in how the future shape of Europe
will be decided; a whole raft of trade agreements with other nations, all of
which would have to be separately negotiated if Britain were to leave; and a
voice on the global diplomatic stage which would be much smaller were the UK to
be operating alone.
Against
which Euro-sceptics argue that the larger the EU becomes, the smaller the
British voice becomes; that the pooling of sovereignty has taken key powers away
from elected representatives at Westminster; and that EU rules and regulations
are stifling British enterprise.
But
perhaps the argument is about more than facts and figures: maybe it's also
about how British voters think of themselves and their national identity,
relative to our fellow-Europeans. Proud, separate, different -- and yes, let's
be honest about it, better.
But
back to that referendum. Party leaders know only too well that recent
experience suggests that when governments ask voters a direct question about
the EU, they don't get the answer they were hoping for. French and Dutch voters
said No to a new constitution in 2005; and then a revised treaty, the Lisbon
treaty, was thrown out by Irish voters in 2008. (They eventually said Yes a year later after a number of
concessions had been negotiated.)
So
suppose there is a UK referendum some time after 2015 -- and suppose the
question is something nice and simple, along the lines of: "Do you want
the UK to remain in, or to withdraw from, the European Union?" When the
question was asked in a referendum in 1975, two-thirds of voters said they
wanted to stay in. Forty years on, I fancy the answer would be very different.
How
would you vote?