Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Life
in Spain
- Cataluña 1: Don Quijones: These measures, which are more fitting of a capricious tin-pot dictatorship than a modern, self-respecting democracy, will do nothing to improve relations between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. . . If anything, the repression is more likely to strengthen rather than weaken the resolve of Catalonia’s independence movement. Quite. More here.
- Cataluña 2: Some of the Catalan reaction to the imposition of rule from Madrid.
- Cataluña 3:One third party reaction.
- Cataluña 4: As expected, there's much talk of early elections in Cataluña. In preparation, the Spanish government has taken over the local TV channel and can be expected to use it as it does the state channel(s) - for the propaganda purposes which they decry on the part of the Catalan government. Democracy in Spain.
- Cataluña 5: Meanwhile, President Puigdemont continues to prove that – in Cataluña at least - You can displease all the people all the time. And the number of companies who've moved their head office from the region has risen to 'more than 1,000'.
- Cataluña 6: Speaking impressively on British TV this morning, the Spanish Foreign Minister has claimed that whatever violence there was on October 1 around Cataluña was 'not deliberate'. That's Ok, then.
Richard North continues
to pull his hair about the way Brexit is being negotiated by the
British government:- The issue, of course, is that no one who has
done any serious analysis can be under any illusions that the "no
deal" scenario is a non-starter. We are not the only ones to
have suggested that, as a ploy, it is akin to Davis threatening to
shoot himself if we don't get out own way. . . . Yet, even if
Davis seems to be breaking out of his fantasy cycle, this new-found
reality is apparently not shared by his ministerial colleague, Liam
Fox. Jessop offers no detail. Nor indeed does Roger Bootle,
another "no deal" fantasist. These people never do.
On the other hand,
Janet Daly sees some reason for a minor degree of optimism. On the basis that - as the
French doctor and I agreed in the early hours of Thursday morning - common sense would surely break out, both in the UK and on the
Continent. See the article below.
Nutters Corner:-
Yesterday Donald Trump posted a tweet recommending
a book called 'A Place Called Heaven' and calling its
author, Dr. Robert Jeffress, a “wonderful man.” What he
didn’t say is that this wonderful man has made numerous
controversial statements, including his suggestion that Satan is
behind the Catholic Church. Even
as a lapsed Catholic atheist, I can't go along with that.
Finally
. . . Seeing how far concern for safety/risk reduction has gone in the UK, I wonder how long it'll be before every road is fenced off from pedestrians.
Today's
Cartoon:-
"Now, don't panic, petal. It's called a thought. Now, trust Mummy and put back your iPod and you'll soon be as right as rain." |
THE ARTICLE
The EU finally seems to
have realised that this is not a play fight any more: Janet Daly
Is this hell? We appear
to be locked in some horrible recurrent dream in which the same
people say the same things again and again in varying tones of voice,
but always with the same deadly intransigence. The “negotiations”
over our exit from what was supposed to be a fraternal, cooperative,
mutually beneficial association is now a hostage crisis in which the
ransom cannot even be agreed, let alone met.
The two sides in the
British political divide on Brexit are, ironically, in agreement that
this process is utterly futile. For the irreconcilable Remain camp,
this means only one thing: let’s call it off and stay in – or at
least retreat to the safe harbour of a simulacrum of membership. For
the tenacious Leave team, it confirms the worst expectations of
malign EU intentions, so the only plausible solution is to pull the
plug on the entire charade and walk away.
Even if both sides are
making use of this mess for their own ends, surely they are both
right: this is hopeless.
Or is it? By the end of
last week, much official effort seemed to be going into producing
what Americans call new “optics”. The leaders of Europe’s
governments – who have to worry about being re-elected and are
therefore not free to give a Juncker like shrug over the fate of
their own economies – started talking turkey about trade.
At least, they started
to talk about talking about it. Not with Britain, of course, just
among themselves. But we had already had hints of that: the EU27 was
to begin exploring the possibilities that might – maybe, possibly –
constitute an arrangement for trading with the UK after it leaves.
This will involve, one
may imagine, some pretty heavy-going debate between countries like
Sweden, whose main concern is selling us things and where the
National Board of Trade is already engaged in drawing up a basis for
trading with the UK post-Brexit, and those whose concerns are
fiercely ideological, like France, which was the original architect
of this metaphysical project.
At some point, they
will presumably report back to the UK negotiating team with the
conclusions of these internal deliberations – assuming that they
are able to reach mutually acceptable conclusions. In the end, it
will almost certainly be Germany (when it eventually forms a
government) that will call the shots. And that may be good news for
the UK (if you think that reaching some sort of agreement is good
news) and for the desperately embattled Conservative government.
It was Angela Merkel
who was leading the upbeat chorus after the EU Council summit.
She simply would not countenance the idea that Britain would leave
without a deal: there was “absolutely no indication” of such a
thing, she said, and then added that for British Eurosceptics to urge
Theresa May to walk away was “absurd”. Contrary to reports in the
UK media, progress was being made step by step. And so on. Whether
you believe this or not, the fact that she said it is hugely
significant.
In the great EU
tradition, everybody followed Germany’s instructions. The European
Council’s president, Donald Tusk, tweeted that EU leaders had given
the green light to “preparations for the second phase [of
negotiations]” and Jean-Claude Juncker, in his predictably
back-handed way, agreed: he hated the “no deal” scenario, he
said – which was an oddly personal way of putting it.
Only Emmanuel Macron
(see reference to France above) seemed adamantly unhelpful, muttering
about how much more work still needs to be done on the question
of money. On the prospect of no deal, he was relentless: “The UK
would be the first to lose in that situation.” (But not the last,
he might have added.)
What is the lesson of
this sudden outburst of conciliatory noise? That the people who
really run the EU – the elected leaders of its member states –
have got the upper hand over its unelected, unaccountable pinhead
bureaucrats? Or maybe that this business was bound to get serious
eventually and that reality is finally breaking through?
Either or both of these
things are probably true, but it is almost certainly the case that
the increasingly aggressive calls from assertive Brexiteers for the
UK to walk away – supported by some extremely persuasive argument
and evidence for the plausibility of a no-deal future – have scared
the living daylights out of European leaders.
Mrs Merkel may claim
that their calls are “absurd”, but if she is even remotely
persuaded that they are under serious consideration, she – and her
colleagues – will know that this isn’t a play fight any more.
At least for the
moment, we must take all this nice talk at face value. The EU really,
really loves us. Punishment is not what they have in mind –
certainly not. Nor do they wish to make an example of us to dissuade
any other malcontents who might get dangerous ideas about
self-government.
Presumably even the
terrible twins of Brussels, Juncker and Michel Barnier, will now be
caught up in the new mood of generosity and fair play. Fine. Let’s
go with that. It is precisely the attitude that Mrs May offered in
her speech in Florence last month. Indeed, Mrs Merkel’s words
appeared to echo Mrs May’s quite pointedly.
In that spirit, the UK
negotiating team should step on to the front foot. An immediate
unilateral offer of existing rights to all EU citizens living in the
UK should be the first move. This would make it morally impossible
for the EU not to reciprocate by matching the offer to UK citizens
living in Europe.
Then they must give
great attention to every word that is uttered by everybody to ensure
that we always make an unimpeachable and coherent case for our
position: yes, this is about defending the democratic integrity of
the nation state – which is a very different thing from nationalism
of the sinister sort.
Above all, we
understand the difficulties. Nobody has invoked Article 50 before.
Everybody is stumbling in the dark. But all our peoples deserve
something better than political vanity and recrimination.
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