This seems like an iconic example of what NOT to do when faced with an independence referendum. Compare the situation in Scotland or Canada, where AIUI the central government grudgingly permitted the referendum, campaigned on the issue locally, and offered symbolic concessions to local autonomy while focusing heavily on the pragmatic risks and costs of independence. In Catalonia by contrast we have plenty of images of the police violently disrupting the referendum and independence protesters, then pledging to end local autonomy altogether.

I think the issue lies in that those central governments have become more tame over time, while Spain hasn't. They were largely united under a dictator where, in the very recent past, it was illegal for Catalans to teach their language or even speak it publicly.

Spain realizes the fragility of their position, and they're choosing to lash out in the same way Franco would have.

sigh... Again asking for the blood bath?

What really Franco would have done? Well, Franco would have killed hundred-thousands of people. Again.

How many Catalonian independentists has been killed by the current spanish government since october? ZE-RO?.

Wake-up. Zero is not equal to thousands. Talk seriously or don't talk but please, stop with all this Franco BS. This comparison is insulting for any people with more than two alive brain cells that endured the Franco regime.

The overall reaction of "we're going to assume direct control and remove your governmental power" is one of lashing out and entitlement, and an attitude that doesn't work as evidenced by the comment I was responding to concerning the methods other countries have chosen.

I meant that this reaction is in a Franco-like, dictatorial direction, not that their reaction is of the same magnitude (on the other side is the UK's replies to Scotland's desire for independence, for example).

Spain is not UK. Both situations aren't neither correlated nor comparable. In the same way that Londoners can't play with firearms in their backyards arguing than people in Texas can explode things all the time; Catalonians shouldn't enjoy the same level of independence than X merely by the argument than X exists somewhere.

The truth is that Catalonia would strongly reject a referendum to achieve the current Scotland status. They enjoy currently much more privileges and freedom to manage their resources at will, than scots can dream.

Now that action is required, the rest of the country is so riled up there's little room for compromise.

Is just a symbol of power. Another step to bend the arm of the central government again, not the end of the agenda. Catalonian people had another referendum in 2016, plus one free elections in between. Is insane to keep asking for a referendum each 6 months until independence is forced

If Spain would have agreed on a referendum, the current situation would be very different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_ref...

Thanks for the correction

Did they? The EU doesn't support Catalan independence, the US doesn't support the movement, the Catalan independence has 0 backing from any outside source, while most countries see this as an internal affair within Spain. Madrid even loosened rules on Spanish companies, allowing them to easily move their headquarters to Madrid, triggering an exodus out of Barcelona. The response was certainly heavy-handed, but the table is definitely in Madrid's favor.

>Here we are as Catalan declares independence, which it seems can either turn into a civil war, a flat-out failure with everyone arrested, Spain eating some humble pie to get them back to the table, or Spain just accepting Catalan is gone.

Catalan has 0 outside support and the support within the region is fractured as well, with Barcelona split on opinion. Many major companies have already moved their headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid. Spain has constitutional powers vis-a-vis Article 155 to impose authority. All signs point to this independence movement being a flop.

When Turkey's coup took place, for example, Western countries absolutely wanted Erdogan gone and Ataturk's values restored. It wasn't until the coup had clearly failed that the vast majority of countries expressed support for Erdogan and his regime.

Who supports who doesn't confer any moral validity to a people's right to democracy and independence, though I understand if you mean the practical advantages of support.

Either way, we may quickly see these international attitudes change as events progress, especially if Spain takes away autonomy in Catalonia.

You don't. But you do need it for anyone in the world to accept is as a fact. A region like that cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world.

Good luck without being self-sufficient.

In the first (more common) US-style sense, the government certainly did declare the referendum illegal.

This doesn’t sound right. I’d like to see some proof of this. I’m from India and I only use government to refer to the legislature which happens to commingle with the executive branch. I’d love to join the mainstream if my usage is in the minority.

Also, Spain is a parliamentary monarchy so in a thread centered on Spanish politics, I feel you should use the word government as used by Spaniards.

This is a point of confusion here, because this is a US based discussion site. So US persons say 'the government suppressed the election', Spain persons say 'no, the government didn't do it, the courts did it'.

To the US person objecting, it doesn't make a huge difference if judicial, legislative, or executive is suppressing an election -- suppressing an election is bad. How can a vote be illegal? Certainly the referendum may not be legal, and that should be decided by the courts, but we're not used to that being decided before holding the vote.

But do you have a word for the whole of government in the US sense? I can't think of something that's not awkward.

Edit to add: In the US sense, government also includes military and police. In the US those are mostly part of the executive branch, but may act at the direction of the judicial or legislative branches. In some countries the military is an effectively separate branch of government.

As an American, though it is absolutely true that I think of "the government" as including the courts, because the government of the US is established by the Constitution, which establishes all three branches. There's not even good reason to talk about a "governing party" most of the time, except for rare times such as now when the Republicans control all three branches of government.

US news media using the word "government" are of course going to use the word "government" in the American English sense. Reporters or copyeditors may not even realize there is a distinction to be made.

I'm really curious as to whether this difference in interpretation is just a linguistic fluke, or if it actually reflects some larger cultural difference in how we in the US view our government compared to how people in India and Spain view theirs.

Do you have a different word which encompasses all governmental bodies and organizations? The State, perhaps? Or would you not consider the courts to be part of the State either? Obviously the courts are involved in governing, since they interpret the law and they have legal authority granted by the constitution. How then are they not part of the government?

This is also confusing in nations where administrative regions are called states. I've seen some media refer to Catelonia as a state, although I believe the term used in Spain is autonomous community.

8 of them are proposed by the legislative branch (parliament and senate), 2 by the executive, and 2 by the judicial.

Whether that makes the tribunal as a whole independent from the government or not is an opinion I leave to the reader.

In any case -- I think the ruling party in Spain wanted this to flare up so they could consolidate political support during the next election, since most of Spain is adamantly opposed to Catalan independence.

A lot of people will claim that it isn't legal. They will be right. But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. <b>Without violence</b>, how is Spain going to stop Catalan from succeeding? What if Catalan gets violent? How will Spain respond?

There are very few good moves left here for Spain.

1978 really wasn't that long ago. I'd call 1978 modern times!

Empire of Law.

The UK government thought like you.

It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass.

And here we are today.

The Brexit vote was full-on farce, people literally had no idea what they were voting yes to. How could they, there was no plan.

February 2016

The process for withdrawing from the European Union Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by Command of Her Majesty

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

2.1 The result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final. The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision. The Prime Minister made clear to the House of Commons that “if the British people vote to leave, there is only one way to bring that about, namely to trigger Article 50 of the Treaties and begin the process of exit, and the British people would rightly expect that to start straight away”.

The referendum question, June 2016 :

---

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

[ ] Remain a member of the European Union

[ ] Leave the European Union

---

Of the votes cast

51.9% Leave (17,410,742), 48.1% Remain (16,141,241)

Electorate 46,501,241

37.4% of the electorate voted to leave

34.7% of the electorate voted to remain

Also, that "plan" merely states they will trigger article 50. Not what they will do after that. Which is the important part of the whole process. There was no talk of soft or hard brexit. No talk of how much it would cost, no talk about anything other than "We'll trigger article 50". Which it actually turned out, the plan was flawed because they legally couldn't do it and had to create a new law.

43.03% * 91.96% = 39.57%

Edit - I see you removed that claim.

The farce is that people who should've known that were somehow shocked by it.

We voted "out" of the common parliament.

Secondly, a more accurate UK comparison would probably be with the Scottish referendum, which was won by those who wanted to remain part of the UK and so Scotland did remain part of the UK.

Matter of fact this should be read as a win for direct democracy and responsibility- you believe that you can get away with your rhetoric ? Well sucks to be you. People liked what you are selling.

I think this calls for stronger links between claims and actions. A stronger more automatic contract between the people voting and the people making the claims.

I think brexit was a monumentally sad moment, the cross roads between the old world and the new connected world. The resulting decisions based on emotions and a super biased media system results in brexit.

The media helps spread junk for political points and as revenue, and the new political class believes that they can get away with it. A belief bubble that requires treatment - via holding people to task for the words they used.

Bah. Who am I kidding. If it was so easy - it would have been done already

Let's remember that it was not against the law of the EU or the UK...

So yes I think it should have.

When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.

Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.

Because that may be what Spain has to do to force Catalonia to comply.

That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.

Even though the referendum was illegal it didn't create any imminent danger. Therefore I think the use of force by Madrid was disproportionate. It also effectively backfired by making the independentists look more sympathetic even though their motive is for the most part rather selfish at the core.

This particular argument -- "fake news, it didn't happen" -- is outside of Spain the most ridiculous Trumpish nonsense imaginable. "Lies"? I saw it with my own eyes in real time. Looking us right in the eye and insisting that black is white is offensive.

https://spanishpolice.github.io/

If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )

If their crime is misappropriating funds for the referendum, then surely the police should be arresting the politicians, not harassing the public at large.

If murder is illegitimate, why suppress it? Brilliant.

While secession will be troublesome, there are not many attempts at preventing secession that have not turned ugly violent in recent years because of attempts to prevent it.

I lived through a non-violent federation split and certainly hope for this outcome elsewhere. In the case of my country majority of the people didn't want the split either. Despite that it was possible to happen without violence.

Certainly an argument in support of the second amendment of the United States.

What good is a semi-automatic against a supersonic jet that just fired an air-to-ground missile in your direction? Plenty of AK-47s in Afghanistan, they don’t even take on subsonic drones effectively.

In Vietnam and Afghanistan they had weapons being sent to them including stuff like artillery and mortars.

A bunch of militia with store bought guns(many pistols or hunting rifles) doesn't really compare to guys supplied with full automatics and RPGs.

This is not the way things would play out. The federal government would twiddle their thumbs and say that they are very cross with the separatists, and we'd all get on with our lives.

“Disappeared” isn’t just destroying, it’s capturing, too.

> ...the closest one can get to open arms when you’re wearing heavy body armour.

Ironically, heavy body armour (depending on the width of the chest plate near the breast) is likely to force you to have open arms, not the opposite.

So there's usually a violent group of government supporters who don't have any special arms or training. eg, Hitler's brown shirts.

The second amendment is very affective against them.

The point is that no matter how much "power" the federal government has granted to civilians via the 2nd amendment, the federal government will ALWAYS have more.

If you do care about civilians (and I assume the US armed forces would be forced to care) a jet is probably not worth much against an AK-47, as long as that AK-47 is in the hands of a guy who is willing to hang out close to a bunch of civilians.

Again you can win a counter insurgency either by winning over the local population or by utterly destroying it (see manda, the Island of Melos).

The argument that “the government is too strong they’d beat you with your puny guns” is so incredibly short sighted. You’re discounting the power the rifle gives the people not only as a weapon but a symbol of freedom and revolution. An armed society is a deterrent at the very least.

Mozambique’s flag has an AK47 on it for a reason.

I am in the process of doing so now, as it happens — leaving the UK because of the Investigatory Powers Act, because the Home Secretary wants to ban unbreakable encryption without understanding it, and because Brexit removes one of the major obligations to follow international human rights laws which would allow me to sue the government to fix that law.

I’d rather pick my battles and live somewhere new, than die an unknown and unnamed victim of a remote death machine.

(It's my understanding that the laws passed by the local catalonian parliament that said things would happen as a consequence of the referendum result were thoroughly voided before the referendum due to being against both spanish and catalonian rules. At that point, one should be able to treat the referendum as just a poll to inform future politics)

My country has a similar constitution, a region can't separate unless the constitution is changed. Probably this is not fair for some regions but it is how it is, you can't decide to ignore constitution, not sure how this is in your country. I was hoping that in future EU would unite us and we get rid of the nationalistic views and finally borders.

This referendum may have been 'illegal' according to the rules of one game, but that's the point - some folks want to play another.

(Not taking a side on the matter; not my country, I'm woefully under-informed.)

More than 50% (70 of 135) of the democratically elected local parliament voted for independence too.

From google:

> a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.

From wikipedia:

> In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state, distinct from the home territory of the sovereign.

If Spain asserts itself as the ruler of Catalonia, without the will of the Catalans, it appears to me that the word is very apt.

Edit: to the person responding, you only see what you want to see. Police acted according to judiciary orders and there were no deaths and just a handful of injured people. Try to resist police in any other civilized country and see what you get.

Edit2: did you see the idiot father charging against the police with a child in his shoulders? did you see the police reaction? or the man that knocked inconscious a policeman throwing a chair at him? or the one kicking a fallen policeman in the head without provocation? did you know that most of the charges footage are old from mossos, not spanish police, from Chile or other countries? Or the girl saying she was tortured and forgot in what arm were the fingers supposedly broken? Real injured numbers are literally a handful, even The Guardian had to admit they've been duped. Of course nothing near the 800 mentioned in propaganda.

Oh and keep downvoting, you can't downvote facts and they0re surfacing now.

Your comment is problematic because you crossed into incivility. Pugilistic comments on divisive topics produce conflagrations. Those are all the same on the internet and therefore they are all boring and therefore we don't want them here. Since this thread has managed to remain relatively civil despite people being on opposing sides of the issue, a comment like this does more relative damage even than it usually would. That's probably the reason for the downvotes.

The guidelines also ask people not to go on about downvoting, so please don't do that either.

Link please?

Certainly Mexico would hold a minority vote and not be able to influence the outcome. Does that mean that all the people of Mexico are "ignoring the constitution" if they don't want to be in the United States?

Uh? Why not? This has been done countless of times in history.

Sure in past that append a common term for that is "revolution" or "coup".

The United States was an exception, but it was an exception borne of geographic distance and fighting against a parent already beset by its adjacent neighbors. Catalan will have no such military advantages if people try to settle this dispute via civil war.

They could have also lost in that case. There has been a huge for-independance campaign spanning 20+ years and including indoctrination of former children that now can vote.

The last governments should not have ignored the problem, making instead an effort to provide objective information on what an independence entails. This is not something that you can level with a couple of months of "No" campaign.

My take on this is that we end up having to open a process to change the Constitution with an ensemble of unprepared politicians (on all sides of the table) that blocks the country for a couple of years (for reference, we have recently spent 18 months with a government in functions because we could not manage to vote the new president).

EDIT: It seems that some people didn't like "indoctrination". Ignore the word, my comment remains the same: education has been strongly focused on building a Catalan identity. It is not something that you level in a short term campaign. In Rajoy's shoes, this is something against his position.

The Spanish government fucked up massively, and I wish the EU had more power to step in and moderate the situation.

By which you mean adults? Is indoctrination one of those irregular verbs?

* i convince * you indoctrinate * he is brainwashing

Or maybe the many accusations of events like this one http://baluartedigital.opennemas.com/articulo/separatismo/vi...

Of course, this is just an argument by authority; but if you look at the content, it's pretty clear that many of the supposed instances of bias are just factual reports that the report argues are instances of bias, but the way to eliminate that bias seems to be that it should be reminding the kids about the existence and goodness of Spain at every turn.

For example, end of page 17, the textbook says: "On 1700, the spanish king Charles II died without sons. Charles of Austria and Philip of Bourbon were the two candidates at the throne. The two sides fought in Succession War (1702-1714), which Philip won. Then, Philip V promulgated, as the new king, the Nueva Planta decrees (1716), which suppressed the laws and institutions of Catalonia, banned the use of catalan, and imposed the laws of Castille."

The report then goes to argue that "this presents the king of Spain as an unjust person that hates Catalonia".

End of page 15, start of 16, the textbook says: "Barcelona is the capital of both the autonomous community of Catalonia and of the province with the same name".

The report argues that "this presents Barcelona as the capital of Catalonia, as if it were the capital of a state, not as a city in a state with another capital" [when the textbook clearly says "Autonomous community of Catalonia"]

And on and on and on...

The second link fits into what I consider anecdote - a single case, that cannot be extrapolated to be evidence of a general case. See my other comment in this thread for a more elaborated response.

About the anecdote, a single case... there have been at least a couple dozen reported. Who knows how many were unreported. Even if they're kind of isolated, they show what kind of environment may exist in some places.

Personally I don't care, I don't have any stake on the matters. I don't like either side.

http://elmunicipio.es/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/mapa-adoctr...

What I'm asking is if there is any substantiated evidence that points to an effort by a sizable part of teachers, education departments, or the like. That's what I understand indoctrination would be. As far as I have been able to tell, there is none.

[1] https://twitter.com/elsmatins/status/923815123260772357 (you'll notice it was retweeted by Albiol himself)

That's an odd way to refer to that thing parents do when raising their kids. We call it 'talking' to them.

You make it sound so sinister - almost like parents were passing on their religion or something.

If you want education that resembles what is taught in public schools of the rest of the country, you need to pay for it.

How exactly is learning a language "indoctrination"? Are children indoctrinated when they're taught through Spanish?

“We are not even allowed to wear a bracelet to school with the Spanish flag’s colors, but you can wear one with the independence colors,” Ms. Camina said.

Ollala de Mora, 16, said: “People in school are really against Spain. Our teachers try to influence us. They say the Spain steals from us and the government is bad. If you think differently from that, they try to change your mind.”

That is indoctrination, and there are constant examples of this in daily life for decades. Only the thought of hating Spain is encourage, and less often the thought of coexistence. No wonder that things are like they are now.

And NY Times is one the biased media I see, clearing the supporting more the Catalonian side.

I have a hard time otherwise understanding the downvote, unless is someone downvoting anything that doesn't defend the Catalonian independentist movement downright.

Sorry, there are social circumstances which are very difficult to see and document, believe it or not.

* I am religious, you are holier-than-thou, they are extremist fundamentalists

* I am sexually experienced, you are kinky, they are being charged under section 70 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003

* I write self-documenting code, you need more comments, their code is unreadable

Read more about the right of self-determination here: http://www.unpo.org/article/4957

Perhaps, if that is what the people in the South (and not just those in positions of relative legal privilege) wanted.

But I doubt that, for example, the 55% of Mississippi's population that was in slavery was particularly energized about secession to preserve the right of their masters to keep them in slavery, though.

Edit: they've neve been independent, that's more of the bs that we're hearing these days.

I think you may be confusing the pattern of colonization in British North America with colonization more generally; the pattern elsewhere was more often of subordination to an imported elite rather than displacement.

92% pro, from a 43% turnout = 39.56% of the electorate in favour of Catalan independence.

Compare to 52% of 72% = 37.44% of the electorate in favour of Brexit.

As someone born in Barcelona, with dual Spanish/British nationality, all I can say with certainty is that I’m deeply saddened to lose not one, but possibly now two connections to my European neighbours.

Someone doesn’t agree I am deeply saddened?!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why bother showing up to an illegal referendum, especially when the very fact of it being illegal means no result can be trusted as accurate?

Politics affects you whether you find it "illegal" or not

1) a lot of young men,

2) who have little to lose, and

3) who are used to living a life with not much more comfort than that of a soldier (maybe even less)

The young generation in Catalonia is small, they have a lot to lose, and they live very comfortable lives.

I don't see them taking up arms. Maybe they will take to the streets for a few days, but they are not willing to fight in great numbers, or give up studies or jobs.

In the last civil war in Spain or the one in America or the ones in the Middle East, those conditions were present.

and then your young, angry Arab man, third son in a family of 5, little education, no girls, no fun, no safety, no future.

I’d love to hear a contrary opinion for the downvote I got: gross economic disparity and a large populace that has forgotten war sounds a lot like the early twentieth century.

What I wrote applies more to civil war than to war between nations (where citizens can be forced to war by governments). Of course, in reality the line between war between nations and internal civil war is often blurred - civil wars and wars are often mixed up and neighboring nations often support one side with money, weapons, troops etc. Furthermore realities of war can force people to take side once the conflict is ongoing, if nothing else, then to survive.

Now, with that in mind, prior to WWI you had a large generation of poor young German and Austrian men, and a large generation of poor young French, Russian, and British men. Today you don't.

Also, visit a European house or apartment from 1850-1900, which most people still lived in around WWI. One that is used as a museum so that it hasn't been renovated. You'll see that they were significantly less comfortable than today. No AC, no radiators, often no toilets (but a loo outside), usually no showers. Heat was from coal briquettes in a stove near the center of the house which meant constant draft and bad air. Cooking happened from gas, briquette or wooden fueled stove. There was no fridge or freezer but usually a small room that was cooler and where food would be stored. The house had little or no insulation, the windows had one layer of glass. There would often be electricity, but it would only be for the light bulbs. Radios or phones were still not common, hot water was still not a thing everybody had. There might be hens in the yard and milk was delivered in bottles. Most of this, except the radios and telephones, was true for 1939 as well.

Having been in the army myself, it always strikes me how much closer life before modern conveniences was to army life. Take 25 year old Hermann, a single guy from 1914, and put him in a military camp. He would not experience such a huge drop in comfort as you or I would before the fighting begun. He would eat, drink, sleep, keep warm etc. much in the same way as if he was home. He would entertain himself with books, songs etc. much in the same way. He would be surrounded by men just as he likely would at home or work or university. This was in the beginning of woman's emancipation so he would probably not miss out on a dating scene, going out with girls, male/female social life etc. For many, life meant long hours of hard manual labor in factories or farms, not less hard than the manual work in military. No vacation, no weekends (but a Sunday). His life outside of military was not that much better. Until the fighting begun, of course.

Today, joining a primitive militia/guerrilla group would mean a huge decline in quality of life of an 18 year old from Barcelona. Take 25 year old Jordi from Barcelona. He graduated as a graphical designer some months ago and spends 2 hours a day playing Counter Strike and 3 hours on his iPhone7 swiping left and right. Sometimes he looks for jobs online. He has female friends, and a dating life. He is used to walking to the metro, but otherwise doesn't get much exercise. He still lives with his parents and will likely do so for a few years more unless he gets himself together and turn that computer interest into something useful. Life has its challenges, but it sure isn't that tough. He has never killed anything he ate. He has never done much manual labor. Right now he's concerned if he will have enough money to join his friends skiing in the Pyrenees in a few months and what he's going to tell the date tonight about his job situation. He sure isn't worried about food on the table.

Might Jordi join the protest on Placa Catalunya? Yes.

Would he take up arms and hide in a forest in the low mountains west of Zaragoza waiting to ambush the approaching castellano troops? I wouldn't say never, but I just can't see it happening. Jordi loves the idea of Catalonia but he also loves his life and camping is not really for him. Plus he has a date tonight.

There is simply a greater difference between Western "working class" or middle class life and the outdoor, offline, off dating manual labor life of a soldier, than there was before.

Not, this is a lie. Was not the government that declared it illegal. Were the judges of the hightest spanish tribunal, because in their opinion this is a disguised coup against constitution.

> Once they had the massive yes vote the only way out to the evil government is to surrender and negociate...

Another thousand times repeated lie. Because 2 million of votes (including X people voting n>1 times) is now the 90% of 46 million of people (including 7,5 million of catalonian people).

Lets suppose, for example, that some people would want to reinstall the slavery to Louisiana, or to bring comunism to Nebraska. "Would be good for the economy" they say. So they require to ask people for "blah blah blah democracy". Let suppose that they declare that if the referendum is positive, all black people will lose their properties and be slaves again, "because blah blah blah, pacifism". And they want you to pay this circus with your tax money, because their shamelessness is infinite.

And then some people ask that government should allow this, because voting is good.

Should the government "embrace" this spoiled children acts and let them to steal millions of dollars in their face?.

Everybody can promote a referendum to ask people their opinion about anything, but with their money, without using public buildings and resources and without shamelessly declaring that the results from the poll will trigger a chain of illegal abuses and changes for most of the people in the zone.

Maybe you expect to elicit a sense of horror in your readers?

Taking all of this in mind and much other things, I think that can be taken as a fair example. Not equal, but much closer than you could expect.

CUP, 8% of the votes. The other pro-independence parties mostly from the right.

There goes the communism thing, what about the slavery thing?

It seems to me that you are trying again the same trick.

In any case, again, was an example. Not meant to be taken literally.