A danger to democracy

Sir, - I can’t believe that we’re in a democratic, 21st Century Europe.

Thousands of Spanish Government police have been deployed to Catalonia to ‘oversee’ the functioning of the local Catalan police, while senior local government officials in and around Barcelona have been threatened with fines of £10,600 a day if they dare to take part in an unofficial referendum on whether or not to break away from Spain.

Unbelievably, this has been discussed with, and sanctioned by, the appropriate EU Commissioners.

The Spanish Government does not seem to realise what a counter-productive situation it has initiated.

While the referendum is still unofficial, what Catalan is not now going to vote for a break with such an overbearing central government?

Spain belongs to both the European Union and the United Nations and as such has signed up to allowing its citizens to have the right of self determination regarding the way they wish to be governed.

More than half a million Spaniards died in the Spanish Civil War in the name of democracy and after the dictatorship of General Franco, that nation has only had a representative

parliament for 42 years.

Why is the current Spanish Government spoiling it all now using these dubious tactics?

Let’s see what happens on October 1.