The stakes are high but the use of referendums is on the increase
We look back at major independence votes, from Kurdistan to Catalonia
On the face of it, a referendum is the perfect instrument for a country to resolve major constitutional issues. But in recent years such votes have demonstrated the dangers in exercising the device.
This year there were independence referendums in Kurdistan and Catalonia, and in both cases the results led to violence as Iraq and Spain cracked down on the secessionist regions.
The poll called on September 25 by the Kurdistan Regional Government took place in a time of chaos after the rise of ISIL.
When the Iraqi military shattered in the face of ISIL’s advance in 2014, it was the Kurdish peshmerga forces who stepped in and took control of strategically important cities such as Kirkuk.
Kurdish leaders agreed to put the goal of independence on hold until the fight against ISIL was won.
The ruling political parties of Iraqi Kurdistan, the KDP and PUK, agreed to push for a referendum in the second half of this year after the recapture of Mosul.
With increasing disunity between the major factions, the poll was held and 93 per cent of voters said they wanted an independent state, with a turnout of more than 70 per cent of the electorate.
Baghdad immediately sent forces to take back the mixed city of Kirkuk, where the Kurds had been warned not to hold the poll.
Despite bids to resolve the crisis peacefully, more than 80 people died as the army resumed control of the city against little resistance.
The political aftermath of the referendum has been tense, with the Iraqi Kurd president Masoud Barzani standing down last month and calls for constitutional talks between the region and the central government not occurring.
The Catalonian desire for self-rule has a long background. The region has a distinct history stretching back hundreds of years, and until the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s it was allowed some autonomy in how it ran it affairs.
Gen Francisco Franco’s Nationalists crushed the Republicans who had made Barcelona their capital. Catalan autonomy was abolished during Franco’s dictatorship from 1939 to 1975. After democracy was reintroduced to Spain by the 1978 constitution, the Catalans were again granted autonomy, which was increased in a 2006 statute.
The wealthy region subsequently lost most of these gains four years later after a constitutional court ruling and during the long recession that affected the nation as a whole, resentment towards central government in Madrid increased.
Once a separatist administration was in place in Barcelona after regional elections in 2015, it became clear that a flashpoint was coming.
Momentum grew for a referendum asking the question: “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?” It was eventually called this year for October 1.
The national government and courts called the poll illegal and on the day of voting riot police sent by Madrid cracked down on Catalonia, with more than 1,000 people injured as they tried to vote.
The result was 92 per cent for independence, but on a turnout of only 42 per cent as unionists in the region had boycotted the poll.
On October 27, the regional government declared independence and within hours the Spanish government had imposed direct rule on Catalonia.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont fled to Brussels with members of his cabinet. Those who returned to Spain were arrested. Regional elections have been called by Madrid for today, which polls suggest will return a minority separatist coalition.
Meanwhile, for a country that prides itself on the conservatism of its political traditions, it is paradoxical that the UK has staged two recent referendum votes that have been highly disruptive.
Britain’s recent plebiscites almost led to the dissolution of the 310-year bond between Scotland and the rest of the country in 2014, and the country voted to leave the European Union after 43 years.
The first poll, on Scottish independence, was the greatest threat to the union since it was brokered in 1707.
There had always been voices in favour of various versions of home rule but the movement was often more concerned with achieving devolution of certain powers to Edinburgh rather than full independence.
With the discovery of natural resources off the Scottish coast in the North Sea during the 1970s heightening a national sense of injustice about where the money for “their oil” was going, the push for home rule forced the Labour government of prime minister James Callaghan to offer a referendum in 1979 on whether to have a devolved Scottish assembly.
A majority voted in favour but the turnout was too low to effect the change.
The nationalist movement grew during 18 years of Tory government and when Labour returned to government in 1997, they established the new Scottish parliament.
But the independence movement grew stronger, all the more so after the Scottish Nationalist Party became the largest in the regional assembly in 2007.
The eventual margin of victory for the unionists in a referendum in 2014 was wider than expected, at 55 per cent, on a turnout of 85 per cent. The question remains when, not if, another vote will be held.
For most of its membership of the EU, Britain had been a reluctant member of the trading bloc, with significant factions in both major parties finding ideological and constitutional reasons to distrust the union.
Within the Tory party, a strong anti-European movement sprung up in the early 1990s, making life a misery for Conservative prime minister John Major.
And by the time the party returned to government in 2010, there was a contingent within that eventually forced David Cameron into holding the June 23 poll, despite his winning an unexpected majority in the 2015 election.
Initially expected to be a walkover for the remainers, the polls narrowed as the Leave campaign argued that quitting the EU would result in billions of pounds more for Britain’s National Health Service, and also warned that millions of Turkish immigrants would make their way to the UK if it remained in the union.
The violent speeches during the campaign were blamed for creating the conditions that led to the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, a remainer, less than a week before the referendum. She died at the hands of a far-right terrorist who shouted “Britain first” as he shot her.
The chaos caused by the 52 per cent vote to leave the EU continues. The EU and Britain have only just concluded the first phase of “divorce talks” that have to finish before the end of March 2019 when the country will cease to be a member of the union.
One of the leading proponents of Britain’s exit and beneficiaries of the Brexit vote, cabinet minister David Davis, once took a different view on the referendum.
“We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards,” Mr Davis told the House of Commons in 2002.
“Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it.”