> they have been warned several times of the penal consequences

If this is a common sentiment in Spain on how to resolve such issues, I wouldn't call it a democracy. The UK has many problems, but it handled the Scottish referendum much better.

The Catalan parliament, which works based on laws on which the central government does not have nothing to say, required a large majority to pass important laws. The independentist government decided to ignore that law and go on with it, ignoring the advice of their own layers. They know not even half of their population wants independence [1], and they still decided to declare it based on the results of a referendum that, independently of how bad the police actions were, cannot be taken seriously.

If you think that not allowing a minority to impose their ideas on a majority is not democratic, then I do not know what democracy is.

[1] This report is by the (independentist) government of Catalonia, and clearly says that according to their polls less than 44% wants to leave and more than 48% wants to stay in Spain: http://icps.cat/archivos/sondeigs/dossiersc2019cat.pdf?noga=...

What is their agenda? Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?

> Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?

They did vote for it, and pro-independence political parties failed to win the popular vote in the last democratic election of catalonia in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_regional_election

That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election.

Failing to win the popular vote, all independence parties left any ideological differences aside and united forces to obtain majority in the parliament, using that majority to push for an illegal referendum that most of the population in Catalonia didn't took seriously. They then tried to used the results of the illegal referendum, where mostly only those citizens pro-independence went to vote to try to push for independence, ignoring the will of the 53% of the voters that voted against them in the last democratic election.

All in all, a pretty good shit-show, that has resulted in a couple of politicians accused of treason and in jail or in exile.

IMO the worst parts of this are that (1) ~50% of the population has a different opinion than the other 50%, and they will need to manage to live together independently of how things turn out, and (2) Catalonia's politicians do not care about their constituents, and only appear to care about those constituents that voted for them. I personally think that's pretty shameful, and don't have any respect for any of the politicians on either side.

> IMO the worst parts of this are that (1) ~50% of the population has a different opinion than the other 50%, and they will need to manage to live together independently of how things turn out, and (2) Catalonia's politicians do not care about their constituents, and only appear to care about those constituents that voted for them. I personally think that's pretty shameful, and don't have any respect for any of the politicians on either side.

That's pretty exactly the UK/Brexit problem as well. :(

You could literally s/Catalonia/UK/g and have the sentence be 100% valid for the UK too. :)

> That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election.

Indeed, but I didn't say "a majority". This is exactly why I said "remain" would have won, Spain could have ruled it void anyway, and everyone would have been happy.

> Spain could have ruled it void anyway, and everyone would have been happy.

This would have sent the message that it is ok for public servants to ignore the will of half the people they are responsible for, and that they are above the law.

That's a dangerous message to send.

What was stupid was sending the police against the voters. That was completely unnecessary and gave the independence movement a lot of "legitimacy" in the international community.

They should just have arrested the organizers of the referendum on that same day and call it a day. Instead, they let them flee to brussels.

that's a large simplification of the problem. ¿Can Barcelona where people is less independent secede from the rural Catalonia? ¿Can the rich secede from the poor? As a matter of the actual law, only all the Spaniards can vote for a change like that, but Catalonians will never accept such thing because they will never be able to convince that the separation of Catalonia is a good thing for both sides.