[LaLaLand122]

If I were in the Spanish government, I would give Catalonia a legal binding referendum. But splitting a country is not something you do in a weekend, we can't have Catalonia splitting with 50% + 1 of the votes just for "+1" to change his mind next week and Catalonia joining again.

So I would give Catalonia a legal binding referendum... with a requirement of at least a 66% vote in favour. For each person that wants to remain, there would be two that don't; and if you are at that point, it's probably better just to let them go. Being a politician, I would surely try to at least round it up to 70%.

They would never get 66% of the vote. If it looks risky, I could send the police in the Looney Tunes ship again... to vote!

And if they refuse my offer... well, it's way easier to argue "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it". Right now, Catalans have the easy "freedom" argument.

[the_gipsy]

> And if they refuse my offer... well, it's way easier to argue "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it". Right now, Catalans have the easy "freedom" argument.

This would change nothing. And they would never do a referendum on those terms. The whole thing, politically, is not meant to actually go through.

[LaLaLand122]

I would not be trying to solve the problem forever. I would be trying to effectively control it.

The alternative was to send police to fire rubber bullets, with somebody losing an eye (https://www.spainenglish.com/2019/10/01/eye-rubber-bullet-ca...), against people that wanted to... vote.

Rubber bullets happen to be a weapon invented by the British to use during The Troubles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_bullet). But even the British, the inventors, stopped used them. In fact, the Catalan local police were also banned from using them and were shot in Catalonia only because it came from the non-Catalan police (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-pr...).

(Not to mention all the other images of police violence).

Being able to say "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it" vs giving the other party such a great narrative "That's why we want independence. We are more civilized than them. They are aggressive animals." changes something.

[the_gipsy]

Their narrative would just change slightly, to not getting a "real" or "fair" referendum, one that they could win. And they would not be wrong.

Yes, sending the riot police was a very, very bad move in terms of defusing a conflict. Literally all they had to do is let them run their big show, and expectedly declare the result void. At most, prosecute the politicians that unilaterally proclaimed independence in the parliament based on that puppet referendum.

However, the political party in power at the time, Partido Popular, knew that they would win some (right/fascist) votes everywhere else in Spain by exceeding force in Catalonia, in a kind of "scorched earth" move. They historically got almost no votes represented out of Catalonia anyway.