Pro-independence movements struggle in Catalonia and Scotland

Welcome back. The troubles of pro-independence movements in Catalonia and Scotland appear to support the argument that separatism is a fading challenge to Europe’s state system. But even if Spain and the UK are in no immediate danger of breaking up, the longer-term picture is more uncertain. I’m at tony.barber@ft.com.

After Nicola Sturgeon resigned in February as Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National party, political commentator Wolfgang Münchau (formerly of the FT) wrote: “With Nicola Sturgeon, so goes Scottish independence, the last of Europe’s great independence movements.”

Is Münchau right? His verdict attracted spirited criticism from Ben Wray, an analyst of Europe’s separatist and nationalist parties, in an article headlined “Are Europe’s independence movements dead?”

Wray contends that these movements have more staying power than Münchau suggests, even if they “appear to be significantly less menacing today than in the mid-2010s”. Discussing the outlook for the SNP and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), the party that governs that region of Spain, Wray outlines three possible scenarios:

1. The ERC and the SNP drift towards becoming parties that are more or less satisfied with seeking to accrue more devolved powers.

2. Pro-independence parties begin to disappear as serious political forces.

3. The forces of independence from below find renewed momentum through an ambitious agenda of constitutional rupture paired with radical solutions to the inflation crisis.

Of these three possibilities, Wray thinks the first is the most likely. I find his argument fairly convincing. However, the lesson of modern European history is that states and their borders are by no means permanent fixtures on the map.

Fluidity of Europe’s state system

Since the first world war, the state system of Europe has been redrawn at frequent intervals, sometimes quite dramatically. Multinational states such as Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia appeared, only to fall apart decades later.

The borders of Germany, Hungary, Poland and others have undergone extensive change, and the UK shrank with the emergence of an independent Ireland. Although many of these upheavals were associated with the two world wars, it smacks of a certain complacency and blindness to historical processes to assume that today’s European state borders are fixed in stone.

Furthermore, a distinctive feature of our times is the inability of nation-states to exercise full control over areas such as physical borders (think of Europe’s response to refugees and irregular migrants), digital space, international financial flows and climate change. These trends are carefully explained in The Lost Future, an impressive new book by the Polish-born thinker Jan Zielonka.

He writes:

Sovereignty and power are becoming separated from the politics of the territorial nation-state, but are not becoming institutionalised in a new space.

In a 2018 article, Sebastian Balfour, a prominent historian of Spain, foreshadowed Zielonka’s argument and outlined the implications for separatist movements:

Globalisation began a process in which many states no longer mediated decisively between national and international economies and were less in control of policymaking . ..

Falling barriers to trade reduced the cost of being a small state and boosted interest in separatism . ..

The re-emergence or strengthening of sub-state nationalism in Europe [came] in response to firstly, a weakening of state-based national identities; secondly, the recession of 2007-2008, which led to collective insecurity and the need for new boundaries of national identity; and finally, to greater opportunities for the emergence of new nations within economic blocs such as the EU.

In the five years since Balfour’s article, events have moved on in Catalonia, Scotland and elsewhere.

Declining support for an independent Catalonia

In the post-Franco era, public support for Catalonia’s secession from Spain reached its peak between 2012 and 2019 — the latter date, two years after separatist politicians staged an illegal referendum and declaration of independence that prompted Madrid to take temporary control of the region.

It is important to note that, even at the height of the push for secession, Catalonia’s population was more or less evenly divided on the question. Those who use Catalan as their first language form the core support for independence, whilst those who speak exclusively Spanish are overwhelmingly hostile to it.

If we look at the most recent survey by the Catalonian government’s Centre of Opinion Studies, we see a decline in separatist sentiment. Take care with this survey: it asks several different questions, and the answers vary accordingly.

To the question, “do you want Catalonia to become an independent state?”, 42.8 per cent of respondents said yes and 50.5 per cent said no. Those in favour were below the levels recorded at various times between 2012 and 2019.

However, in a more detailed question, respondents were offered four choices for the future. They replied as follows: 32.9 per cent supported an independent Catalonia, 23.4 per cent backed a Catalonian state in a federal Spain, 31.6 per cent wanted an autonomous Catalonia in Spain, and 6 per cent preferred Catalonia to be a region of Spain.

In this piece for the Elcano Royal Institute think-tank, published last October, William Chislett provides a chart that shows how the four-choice question has produced ever lower support for outright independence — down from 45 per cent in 2014 to 34 per cent last year (and 32.9 per cent in the latest survey).

Elections in December may spell trouble ahead

To account for the declining spirit of separatism, I suggest several explanations. One is the sharp disagreement between intransigents and moderates in the pro-independence movement, a split that triggered the collapse of Catalonia’s regional government last year.

Another is the relatively conciliatory approach adopted by Spain’s ruling leftist coalition. It has not rigorously enforced a 2021 court ruling that ordered a minimum of 25 per cent of subjects to be taught in Spanish in Catalonia’s public schools.

In December, meanwhile, the government reformed Spain’s laws on sedition and embezzlement in a step aimed at calming tensions in Catalonia, where leading separatists had been jailed on those charges.

I would caution that the ingredients for a revival of secessionism are still present. In particular, a rightwing victory in Spain’s next elections, due in December, would see the return to power of the People’s party (PP).

During its 2011-2018 spell in power, the PP’s reluctance to update the self-government granted to Catalonia under Spain’s 1978 constitution lay behind much of the separatist surge.

The atmosphere could grow even more tense if the PP were to govern in coalition with the Vox party, whose electoral strength derives from its militantly hard-right version of Spanish nationalism.

Dominant SNP retreats in Scotland

Scotland’s SNP is on the back foot after Sturgeon’s resignation and the arrest of her husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, by police investigating the SNP’s finances. More than a decade of virtually unchallenged power in Scotland is taking its toll.

Public support for independence has slipped back, and there is no immediate prospect of a new referendum on leaving the UK (in the first, held in 2014, voters chose by 55-45 per cent to stay).

However, rather like in Catalonia, the independence question colours almost all political discussion in Scotland in one way or another. Politics in Edinburgh or Barcelona takes place in a media environment and public space only partly connected to London or Madrid.

The two cases are similar for a third reason: the electoral weakness in Catalonia and Scotland of the main unionist party of the right, respectively the PP and the Conservatives. As long as that continues, there will be room for the SNP to recover — and it will draw comfort from the knowledge that support for independence is strong among Scots under the age of 50.

There’s a risk of overstating the parallels between Scotland and Catalonia, as the late historian JH Elliott cautioned in his 2018 book Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion. But despite their recent setbacks it seems to me that it is premature to write off the pro-independence movements.

What do you think? Will Scotland and Catalonia become independent states by 2030?

Vote here.

More on this topic

Europe’s secessionist movements and Covid-19 — an assessment by University of Sussex political scientist Jonathan Parker in the journal Nationalities Papers, published online by Cambridge University Press

Tony’s picks of the week

• Public support for large-scale American aid to Ukraine is waning in the midwestern state of Ohio, highlighting the possibility that US policy will shift after the 2024 presidential election, the FT’s Felicia Schwartz reports from Dayton

• For decades the US and Europe promoted open trade, but today each is embracing protectionism, as shown by their defensive approach to green and digital technologies, Bill Echikson contends in an article for the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis think-tank