Posted: Oct 03, 2017 2:22 pm
Sendraks wrote: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.
I think this is broadly correct, although there is a potentially interesting avenue of discussion regarding 2.
We can ask whether the government should have any right to prevent an unauthorised ballot taking place, under what circumstances they have that right, and if/when they do have that right how they should go about it. Police regularly use force in the line of their duties, and whilst "brutal beatings" is not an appropriate use of force, it is at least conceivable that there is such a thing as an appropriate use of police force in this situation.
It doesn't look like it was at all what happened in Catalonia to me, but I'm at least willing to hear the other side of that story.