'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

Catalan independance referendum (non-legal)

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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#41  Postby Sendraks » Oct 03, 2017 11:03 am

Thommo wrote:Short answer is that I don't know. All I can say is that removing borders didn't seem to do a lot of good in that time and place, the way it was done.


I would agree with that. How unification is done, will impact greatly on how unified your nation is in the long run. The unification of Ireland with England via application of military force for centuries is an example of how to create more rather than less division between people. The unification of England and Scotland didn't come about through military force but, because the lines of succession meant a Scottish King was in the position of being able to put the two nations together politically.

Thommo wrote:Maybe, to an extent.


Yes. I don't want to give the impression that movement is the be all and end all but, its importance is hard to ignore. Movement within a nation isn't about opening borders but, about mechanical and social developments which have facilitated people moving around further and further from home than they used to.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#42  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 11:04 am

There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.

Isn't the most likely reason to refuse a referendum that the lawmakers don't want to risk a result they don't like?
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#43  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 11:16 am

Thommo wrote:
Being gay was illegal. When being gay was illegal it was necessarily less visible. It became more visible after at least part of the change in attitudes had already taken place.


Surely Attitudes in some circles must have changed substantially before the law was changed or it wouldn't have been changed.

Thommo wrote:Open borders had no direct role in this increase in tolerance.


No, of course not. Did anyone suggest otherwise? The point was that meeting people that you can see are different to yourself can foster greater tolerance, because you can see them more as people rather than others. That works for geographical borders and social divisions.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#44  Postby Sendraks » Oct 03, 2017 11:17 am

GrahamH wrote:Surely Attitudes in some circles must have changed substantially before the law was changed or it wouldn't have been changed.


True enough. Changes in the law generally follow a step-change in public/political opinions and are intended to give further momentum to those changes.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#45  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 11:42 am

GrahamH wrote:There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.


Absolutely, the questions are whether this is an unjust law and whether this was a protest though.

Ron seems sure it wasn't a protest, I'm inclined to agree.

GrahamH wrote:Isn't the most likely reason to refuse a referendum that the lawmakers don't want to risk a result they don't like?


Perhaps, it's certainly up there. There are other possible motivations as well.

The thing is though, that there's no presumption they need a motivation or that that motivation justifies the response. You cannot in reality have any group that wants to hold a referendum do so whenever they want. There have to be lines drawn for society to function.

The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?

Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#46  Postby Tracer Tong » Oct 03, 2017 11:56 am

Thommo wrote:
Tracer Tong wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:My dad, who's quite progressive, said they shouldn't have gone through with it because the referendum was illegal. :facepalm:
When I asked whether the people in Egypt and Ireland shouldn't have protested because it was illegal, he claimed it was a different situation.
He refuses to realise that it therefore has nothing to do with legality.


I agree with your father, actually. Well, perhaps partly.


I would certainly say he has a point. Violence and a lack of legitimacy were always real risks of defying a lawful order not to hold the referendum and the Catalan government would absolutely have been able to see this outcome ahead of time as a real risk.

I don't think it's fair to say they bear all the responsibility though, clearly many other options (such as just permitting the referendum to be conducted legally on a reasonable timetable) were also available to the Spanish government. Undoubtedly the coming weeks will also show individuals both among the populace and the police who have acted violently, provocatively and in ways that cannot be excused.

I would add that this is a situation I don't honestly know all that much about. From the relatively little I know, it's not at all clear that Catalan separatists have exhausted their methods of peaceful protest or avenues for a diplomatic resolution at this point. I don't think they were obliged to make provocative statements about declaring independence in the event of a "yes" in a referendum they know cannot possibly be representative or legitimate.

As if often the case, there are two sides to this story and many opportunities for people to have acted differently. The sad thing is that it has come to violence.


Yeah, matters are rather more complex than certain Anglo-Saxon commentators, and news agencies, have it. I think the Catalan government has been playing a risky game that’s now unlikely to pay off: even if there is some unilateral declaration of independence in the Catalan Parliament, Madrid will simply ignore it, and probably move to suspend their autonomy (to the extent permissible by the constitution).
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#47  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 11:58 am

Thommo wrote:
GrahamH wrote:There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.


Absolutely, the questions are whether this is an unjust law and whether this was a protest though.

Ron seems sure it wasn't a protest, I'm inclined to agree.


I take any vote in referendum for independence as a protest against central rule.

Thommo wrote:Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.


The regional Government of Catalonia held a referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October 2017.[1] This referendum was first called for in June 2017 and was approved by the Catalan parliament in a session on 6 September 2017 along with a law which states that independence would be binding with a simple majority, without requiring a minimum turnout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_i ... ndum,_2017


This wasn't Jose Blogs unilaterally declaring independence for his garden. It was a democratic process undertaken by an elected parliament. There was "some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda." It just that another parliament claiming sovereignty over this parliament imposed it will over that of the people concerned and sent in the men with batons and rubber bullets to stop them giving voice to the Catalans' wishes.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#48  Postby ronmcd » Oct 03, 2017 12:01 pm

Thommo wrote:
GrahamH wrote:There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.


Absolutely, the questions are whether this is an unjust law and whether this was a protest though.

Ron seems sure it wasn't a protest, I'm inclined to agree.

GrahamH wrote:Isn't the most likely reason to refuse a referendum that the lawmakers don't want to risk a result they don't like?


Perhaps, it's certainly up there. There are other possible motivations as well.

The thing is though, that there's no presumption they need a motivation or that that motivation justifies the response. You cannot in reality have any group that wants to hold a referendum do so whenever they want. There have to be lines drawn for society to function.

The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?

Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.

The thing is, we aren't talking about a house or a village etc, we are talking about a partly autonomous region with it's own government etc. The Catalan govt decided to hold a referendum, but the voters went to the polls, not the Catalan government, and sending in riot police to close down some polling stations using force against the voters, politically it seems crazy.

It's difficult to argue a semi-autonomous regional govt holding a referendum is comparable to a street or a house.

Also the riot police went in to just a few polling stations, it wasn't an attempt to prevent illegal voting. It appears to have been an attempt to make sure the result could be dismissed by disrupting a %. Due to the legal issues, they could have done that without bothering to send riot police.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#49  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 12:02 pm

Thommo wrote:
The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?


No to all but the last one. You can include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. If the people's parliament passes a bill in their representative houses to hold a referendum on anything I think they have a right to do that and take the result into account.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#50  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 12:03 pm

Tongue-in-cheek I'm tempted to suggest that all transfers of sovereignty should follow the Hong Kong model.

Mandatory 100 year cooling off period.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#51  Postby Sendraks » Oct 03, 2017 12:04 pm

Thommo wrote:
The thing is though, that there's no presumption they need a motivation or that that motivation justifies the response. You cannot in reality have any group that wants to hold a referendum do so whenever they want. There have to be lines drawn for society to function.

The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?

Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.


These were pretty much the thoughts I had when this whole thing kicked off over the weekend.

There have been people in the UK calling for a referendum on Europe for a long time. Eventually those people got a political party who was willing to offer that up in return for being elected. Sure the referendum process might have been an omni-shambles but, people used the democratic process to secure the opportunity to have their say in the matter.

We'd rightly have decried any attempt by UKIP or other anti-EU group to run their own referendum and the results of any such process would rightly be ignored. Much the same now if the Lib-Dems decided to run a referendum on remaining in the EU. No one has voted a party into power to do such a thing.

Scotland's independence referendum didn't just whimsically happen, there was a process and an agreement for it taking place.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#52  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 12:05 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Thommo wrote:
GrahamH wrote:There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.


Absolutely, the questions are whether this is an unjust law and whether this was a protest though.

Ron seems sure it wasn't a protest, I'm inclined to agree.


I take any vote in referendum for independence as a protest against central rule.


Without wanting to get into semantic games. This use of "protest" is a different one to that in the phrase "peaceful protest" that you just used.

GrahamH wrote:
Thommo wrote:Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.


The regional Government of Catalonia held a referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October 2017.[1] This referendum was first called for in June 2017 and was approved by the Catalan parliament in a session on 6 September 2017 along with a law which states that independence would be binding with a simple majority, without requiring a minimum turnout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_i ... ndum,_2017


This wasn't Jose Blogs unilaterally declaring independence for his garden. It was a democratic process undertaken by an elected parliament. There was "some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda." It just that another parliament claiming sovereignty over this parliament imposed it will over that of the people concerned and sent in the men with batons and rubber bullets to stop them giving voice to the Catalans' wishes.


Oh, so the majority of Catalans wanted the referendum to happen the way it did, did they? How would I know that?

And how exactly is something a formal legal structure when it's not legal? :scratch:
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#53  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 12:09 pm

ronmcd wrote:
Thommo wrote:
GrahamH wrote:There are surely times when it is the right thing to do to oppose unjust laws with peaceful protest.


Absolutely, the questions are whether this is an unjust law and whether this was a protest though.

Ron seems sure it wasn't a protest, I'm inclined to agree.

GrahamH wrote:Isn't the most likely reason to refuse a referendum that the lawmakers don't want to risk a result they don't like?


Perhaps, it's certainly up there. There are other possible motivations as well.

The thing is though, that there's no presumption they need a motivation or that that motivation justifies the response. You cannot in reality have any group that wants to hold a referendum do so whenever they want. There have to be lines drawn for society to function.

The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?

Similarly if I lose my (self-declared) referendum, can I hold another tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

Whether you take a principled or pragmatic approach it's enormously disruptive (and frankly dangerous) not to have some sort of formal, legal structure around referenda.

The thing is, we aren't talking about a house or a village etc, we are talking about a partly autonomous region with it's own government etc. The Catalan govt decided to hold a referendum, but the voters went to the polls, not the Catalan government, and sending in riot police to close down some polling stations using force against the voters, politically it seems crazy.

It's difficult to argue a semi-autonomous regional govt holding a referendum is comparable to a street or a house.


Maybe. But since that's in no way the point of what you're quoting, I'd question its relevance.

But you've conceded the point here. You agree that the government does have to draw a line as to what is a fair referendum, you agree that some groups are not automatically entitled to a referendum.

What you don't do is tell us how you distinguish between which groups get one and which don't, or why the Spanish government should be compelled to agree.

ronmcd wrote:Also the riot police went in to just a few polling stations, it wasn't an attempt to prevent illegal voting. It appears to have been an attempt to make sure the result could be dismissed by disrupting a %. Due to the legal issues, they could have done that without bothering to send riot police.


I don't think that's relevant. It would hardly be better if they went into every polling station and the reality is that they couldn't do it because they don't have the numbers.

Additionally, lots of other actions were taken by the Spanish government as well, from arrests of organisers before the ballot to trying to destroy materials as well as seize ballot boxes, on top of telling potential voters to stay home. But again, none of that addresses fundamental questions or excuses violence.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#54  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 12:12 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Thommo wrote:
The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?


No to all but the last one. You can include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. If the people's parliament passes a bill in their representative houses to hold a referendum on anything I think they have a right to do that and take the result into account.


Also conceding the point that there must be a line whilst in no way explaining how that line is arrived at on the part of the Spanish government.

I do notice that Oxfordshire has a democratically elected local government and you'd apparently deny them a referendum, but there we go. Perhaps that's just the wrong sort of elected body that not only doesn't have the legal power to call a referendum but doesn't have that legal power in the wrong way?
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#55  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 1:54 pm

Thommo wrote:
And how exactly is something a formal legal structure when it's not legal? :scratch:


What's legal can be rather arbitrary diktat by one group of people imposing on another group.
The point there was that the Catalan referendum came about not as some individual trying to secede but through a democratic process.Some other authority pulled a trump card )force) to try to prevent the democratic process.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#56  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 2:01 pm

So, is there any chance something similar could happen here in the UK? Interest in IndyRef2 is low at the moment, if it revives, if Holyrood votes for it and an obstinate Westminster government tries to deny them could Scotland try to run a referendum and would English Bobbies storm the poling stations with batons drawn?

It seems almost unthinkable, but then what's happening in Spain is barely credible to me.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#57  Postby GrahamH » Oct 03, 2017 2:04 pm

Thommo wrote:
GrahamH wrote:
Thommo wrote:
The line for "who should be entitled to a secession referendum" could be drawn in any number of places.
  • Can I secede from the UK?
  • Can my household secede from the UK?
  • Can my village secede from the UK?
  • Can Oxfordshire secede from the UK?
  • Can the southeast of the country secede from the UK?
  • Can England secede from the UK?


No to all but the last one. You can include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. If the people's parliament passes a bill in their representative houses to hold a referendum on anything I think they have a right to do that and take the result into account.


Also conceding the point that there must be a line whilst in no way explaining how that line is arrived at on the part of the Spanish government.

I do notice that Oxfordshire has a democratically elected local government and you'd apparently deny them a referendum, but there we go. Perhaps that's just the wrong sort of elected body that not only doesn't have the legal power to call a referendum but doesn't have that legal power in the wrong way?


If there's a line it doesn't mean that it must be at the door of the prime minister, does it? Saying there is a line that we can't draw concedes the point that it's not good enough to just say "it's illegal". There are differences of opinion, an impasse. So do you resolve that with force or democratic processes or subservience?
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#58  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 2:12 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Thommo wrote:
And how exactly is something a formal legal structure when it's not legal? :scratch:


What's legal can be rather arbitrary diktat by one group of people imposing on another group.
The point there was that the Catalan referendum came about not as some individual trying to secede but through a democratic process.Some other authority pulled a trump card )force) to try to prevent the democratic process.


So, you've identified one very non-specific factor here. A referendum must be allowed if it's the result of "a democratic process".

So I repeat - why can my household, parish (we have a parish council), county or region not secede? After all, they are all the result of "a democratic process".

My answer, that I would genuinely encourage you to think about for a little longer, is because this situation is actually far more complex than is being implied. That timing, political stability, the appropriate use of powers that have been granted through an established legal framework and many other factors all matter.

Whether or not the Catalan government is a representative democracy in its own right it no more has the authority to hold a referendum than my parish council, county council or the absolute democracy of getting everyone within my household to vote.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#59  Postby Sendraks » Oct 03, 2017 2:16 pm

GrahamH wrote:So, is there any chance something similar could happen here in the UK? Interest in IndyRef2 is low at the moment, if it revives, if Holyrood votes for it and an obstinate Westminster government tries to deny them could Scotland try to run a referendum and would English Bobbies storm the poling stations with batons drawn?

It seems almost unthinkable, but then what's happening in Spain is barely credible to me.


This is a conflation of two things.
1. The process for having a referendum, in the sense that anybody is beholden to act on the outcome.

2. The use of force against people participating in a referendum whether it has been agreed to or not.

I think we can agree that the use of force was unwarranted, so I'm not sure there is much mileage in discussing that. The more interesting discussion is on the first point about how the national elected body responds to devolved nations/nationalities/whatever, deciding to hold referendum's it hasn't agreed to and manages the outcome of that.
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Re: 'Hundreds hurt' as police try to stop voters

#60  Postby Thommo » Oct 03, 2017 2:18 pm

GrahamH wrote:If there's a line it doesn't mean that it must be at the door of the prime minister, does it?


No, but I think the line is with the parliament, constitution and law anyway.

GrahamH wrote:Saying there is a line that we can't draw concedes the point that it's not good enough to just say "it's illegal".


Although nobody said that. Everyone agreed that there was a line and that it must be drawn. :scratch:

GrahamH wrote:There are differences of opinion, an impasse. So do you resolve that with force or democratic processes or subservience?


I'd say they should resolve it with democratic processes. The problem here being that you're defending a group not doing that. Rather than seeking a democratic mandate to get the appropriate powers and legal backing the Catalan government took the decision on everyone's behalf.

Now, whilst it's possible that this was justified, nobody here has actually tried to do so, instead focusing on attempts to circumvent that justification. And my own feeling is that this was not a last ditch attempt to avoid oppression and that other avenues might have been available - to both the Catalan government and the Spanish government*.

*Note: other avenues regarding devolution/referendum powers. That's not an equivalence in terms of violence.
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