David Pratt: How the SNP's independence strategy is influencing the Catalans'

Time and again, I’ve been in countries and situations where, as an outsider, it’s often easier to identify what tactically works and what doesn’t than many of those so closely absorbed in the intricacies of events unfolding around them on their home territory.

When enmeshed in the throes of any political struggle it’s all too easy to look inward or become deeply embroiled in the minutia or differences of tactical approach while all the time the real opposition is taking advantage. The big picture, if you like, becomes lost in a myriad of detail some of which serves only as a distraction and is of no real benefit.

Whatever the reason for my own near obsession with such tactical thinking, I couldn’t help sitting up and taking notice of a headline in yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times.

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“Catalan separatists take a leaf from Scottish nationalist playbook,” the paper declared, with a strapline beneath that read “Pro-independence politicians look north for strategy ahead of Sunday’s regional polls”.

Aside from the obvious reason for the story catching my attention, what struck me most when reading it was how often in the past we here in Scotland have been told by various commentators that the Scottish independence movement could learn a thing or two tactically from our Catalan friends and counterparts.

Watching events in Catalonia these past years, especially the protests at their height in 2019, I was often left wondering just what those lessons were that Scotland could learn. Was I missing something here, some significant tactical illustration or examples from the mass crowds on the street, the outrageously heavily handed policing and bludgeoning of protesters or arrest and imprisonment of their leaders?

Just what was it that Catalans were seen to be doing right that we Scots were failing to grasp tactically in our struggle for independence, I found myself asking? What were Scottish commentators taking out of this that they thought positive, that I was failing to see or understand?

Well, if the views of Catalan vice-president Pere Aragonès are anything to go by then not much. Indeed, on the contrary it would seem on the face of it to be the other way around.

“If there is a model we can focus on, it is the Scottish one: an effective, progressive government and a referendum recognised by the UK that was the result of negotiations,” insisted Aragonès, in his interview with the FT.

It’s worth remembering of course that it was Aragonès and his Catalan Republican Left Party (ERC) that pushed heavily for the controversial referendum in 2017 that led to an effective declaration of independence. If all that sounds familiar closer to home, then that’s because some here in Scotland suggested on more than one occasion that it might be worth taking leaf of our own from the ERC’s tactical playbook.

Yes, I know that the Catalan regional organisers of that 2017 referendum said 90% of those who voted did so in favour of independence, but it did also have a turnout of barely 43%.

It’s worth remembering too that it was deemed unconstitutional by Spain’s highest court. The upshot was direct rule by Madrid, invoked by Spain’s then-conservative government and the deepening of social division between pro-independence and unionist Catalans.

HOW interesting then that in the run-up to Sunday’s crucial ballot, the ERC is rethinking in tactical terms. Admittedly, as one observer, Berta Barbet, a research fellow at the University of Barcelona says, Aragonès represents a strand of separatism more interested in dialogue than going head-to-head with Madrid. The region’s other big independence grouping, Together for Catalonia, has what might be called a more robust approach towards Madrid.

Nevertheless, how curious it is to see the ERC, while keeping its eyes on the prize of independence, now avoiding the unilateral route it previously favoured and giving a nod of recognition to what it sees as the effectiveness of the SNP’s approach.

Some here will disagree with this analysis of course, and frankly I still believe there are things that Scotland can learn from our fellow Catalan independentistas.

My colleagues George Kerevan and Chris Bambery have written extensively on this and the creation of the Now Scotland organisation modelled on the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) is a good point in case. The ANC’s international scope, as both have pointed out, is another plus point bringing together as it does exiles and the wider Catalan diaspora. This is certainly something Scotland could learn and capitalise from.

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Speaking about Boris Johnson’s declaration that the UK Government would not approve another Scottish referendum until well into the future, Kerevan himself is quoted in the FT piece. “It is becoming less and less easy to see how a consensual result is going to emerge if the British government continues in its present fashion,” he concludes.

I agree with him that new strategies need to be considered to bring pressure on London. In so doing though it’s worth bearing in mind that aspects of the Catalan strategy some were all too ready to embrace in Scotland are now being reconsidered by the Catalans themselves.

Somewhere on file I still have a copy of another article that appeared back in 2019 in Foreign Policy magazine under the title “How to Succeed at Seceding”. In it the author Mark Nayler, made the case that as Scotland gears up for its second push for independence it would do well to learn from Catalonia’s failures.

As the region goes to the polls on Sunday it’s now clear that some Catalans see Scotland’s independence strategy as being the one most likely to bring them the independence they desire.

Given the deluge of criticism doing the rounds right now here in Scotland over the SNP’s strategy, now is as good a moment as any to pause for a moment and reflect on what Catalonia’s rethink tell us.