Dockers clash with police in Catalan ports
Mrs May’s speech in Italy today is the perfect chance to stress that we are a powerful friend to the EU
SPAIN’S efforts to prevent an independence referendum in Catalonia hit the rocks yesterday as boatloads of military police were denied mooring space by dockers on the waterfront.
More than 4,000 of Spain’s Guardia Civil were dispatched to Catalonia amid concerns there were divided loyalties in the autonomous community’s own police force, the Mossos d’esquadra. The guardia were to be accommodated on four cruise ships, two in Barcelona, one in Tarragona and another in Palamos. But as thousands took to the streets in Barcelona for a second day of protest over the detention of Catalan officials, dockers joined the backlash.
The Assembly of Stevedores of the Port of Barcelona announced workers would not service any ship carrying security forces, a decision made, it said, “in defence of civil rights”. Colleagues in Tarragona quickly followed suit.
The Catalan government meanwhile denied permission to dock in Palamos, which, unlike Barcelona and Tarragona, falls under regional rather than national control. The head of the department responsible, Josep Rull i Andreu, tweeted: “In effect, we have not let them dock.”
The moves to thwart the deployment come amid growing anger in Catalonia about the arrests on Wednesday of 14 mostly high ranking Catalan officials, during preparations for a referendum declared illegal by the Spanish courts.
But the role of the Catalan police was called into question after a night of demonstrations outside the department of the economy, where 40,000 gathered as the Guardia Civil searched inside.
State agents were blocked from leaving the building and the judge who ordered the raids reportedly called the head of the Mossos at midnight and told him: “Get them out of there.”
While Catalans are split on the issue of independence, support for a vote is high, and few are happy with Spanish police arresting Catalan leaders, which for many revived memories of Franco.
Had Boris Johnson been directing Theresa May’s European strategy, he would have advised her to fly to Florence to give a speech. He has always argued that, after the referendum, one of the important tasks would be persuading the world that Brexit is not nativist, populist or isolationist. People understandably fear otherwise, so Britain has lots of overtures to make.
It makes sense for the Prime Minister to tour not just political capitals but cultural capitals, talking about a new phase of engagement with Europe. She has done a fairly awful job of this so far. Her tone has been relentlessly abrasive, as if she never quite understood Brexit and thought that part of it did involve being mean. She refused to grant assurances to the EU nationals in Britain, something even Ukip proposed. In the general election, she behaved as if she was off to fight a battle abroad. She has had painfully few warm words for our allies and neighbours, perhaps thinking that her strategy would help win votes at home. Now disabused of that notion, she can try again.
The magnificent Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which the Prime Minister visits today, is a good place to start. The city is the birthplace of the European Renaissance; to visit it is to wonder what went right. When the church was consecrated in 1420, Europe was a backwater and China the world’s most prosperous country. The Forbidden City had just been completed in Beijing and Europe was still recovering from the Black Death. But around that time, everything changed.
It was in Florence that the House of Medici and other merchants started to crack the relationship between trade, credit and business expansion. The city-states of northern Italy became the greatest economic powerhouses of the continent, creating wealth that went on to sponsor the arts and kick-start the renaissance. Donatello, Ghiberti and Botticelli were by-products of economic development, as well as artistic genius. And it was a special kind of European genius.
The secret was not being an all-encompassing empire, like China, that sought to impose uniformity. Instead, Europe was a mosaic of about 500 kingdoms, principalities and city-states (like Florence) cooperating and competing with each other, in their own way. Ideas spread quickly around the continent, and trade soon followed.
When small kingdoms merged into nation states, a basic point remained: countries traded, competed – and, yes, often fought. But out of that prosperity and diversity came what we know as European civilisation. The architecture, the universities, the literature, scientific and technological advances: all emerged without any kind of overarching political force. It was the result of Europeans cooperating, competing, and doing things in their own way.
And here lies the problem today. Europe is a continent of the most gloriously divergent countries on earth, too different for any one set of rules. The single currency, for example, has been a disaster because the people of the Netherlands and Italy go about their businesses in different ways. One recent economic analysis found that the nations of a reconstituted Ottoman Empire would have more in common with each other than the members of the eurozone. Geographical proximity does not mean similarity. The EU is going wrong because it does not respect Europe’s diversity.
The Brexit vote emerged not from dislike of Europe, nor even scepticism of Europe, but simply from a differing idea of how our continent (and countries) ought to be run. It seems obvious to many Brits that the low interest rates that suited Germany led to chaos in Greece and Ireland – yet the EU’S response is even tighter rules, regulations and taxes. This was the point of British disembarkation. The idea of a common European market is one that Britain voted for in 1975. But the project of a common European government was an idea we opted out of last year.
A federal Europe was never sellable in Britain, which is why we left the EU – but it’s a geographical impossibility for Britain to leave Europe. The ties of trade, culture, defence, business, people, and investment cannot be severed by Brexit. An ever-closer union of peoples can continue, just not with the ever-closer union of governments. And this is the case that the Prime Minister can now make.
For the first time in decades, a British Prime Minister does not need to worry about stopping an EU federalist project. We can now disagree with Jean-claude Juncker, but wish him well – and say that Britain’s interest lies in the EU’S success. And we can now do everything we can to help that success.
There are 47 members of the Council FOLLOW Fraser Nelson on Twitter @Frasernelson READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion of Europe: all of the EU members, some aspiring EU members and some countries with no plans to join. Britain can now position itself as the most important external ally, the greatest and most powerful friend that the EU has. A country that stands willing to cooperate on counter-terrorism, on diplomatic efforts in Ukraine, on confronting people traffickers in the Mediterranean. This might go down badly in Brussels, where our offers of cooperation could be dismissed as “cherry picking”. But the offer should be an open one.
Mrs May also has a chance to strike a different tone to the trade talks. These meetings have become a pantomime, where Michel Barnier purports to be dismayed at the dire quality of British work and preparedness. But the Prime Minister can today say that there should be no talk about anyone doing badly from Brexit. A globally-engaged, prosperous neighbour is a good customer – as the Florentines have understood better than anyone.
In her Davos speech, she promised that Britain would now become the world’s cheerleader for free trade – filling the vacancy created by a rather protectionist America. Florence is the ideal place to return to this theme, where she can argue that trade benefits everyone. That Britain seeks a free trade deal with the EU because we seek even closer relations with our neighbours.
The attention, today, will be on whatever clues Mrs May gives about future payments to the EU – but Brexit was always about far more than this. It was the retrieval of sovereignty and coming up with better ways to cooperate with our European partners. Brexit is, fundamentally, about building something rather than dismantling something. And her speech today is the perfect time to make this point.