27/10/2017 Newsnight

Tonight,

as Catalans take to the streets

is Spain about to be torn asunder?

Spain has become the first country

in the European Union

to have a secessionist crisis,

with the Catalan Parliament's vote

to declare full independence.

Si. Si. Si...

Si. Si...

Si.

Thousands have been out

on the streets of Barcelona

celebrating the decision,

but furious that Madrid has taken

steps to impose its will and end

all Catalonian autonomy.

TRANSLATION:

So, I'm

informing you that as of

today, I have dissolved

the Catalonian Parliament,

and on the 21st of December,

there will be autonomic elections

for that autonomic community.

We've been among Catalans

as they celebrated independence,

and as the questions

about what happens next

start to multiply.

We'll ask how the rest

of Europe will react

to these momentous events.

Already the UK, Germany,

the European Union

and the US have lined up behind

Madrid, but the Scottish

Government has said that

Catalonia must have the ability

to determine its own future.

So might there now be a broker

to help sort out Madrid's future

relations with Catalonia?

And could there be a legitimate

Catalan Indpendence referendum

in the foreseeable future?

And out in the open,

almost all the files

on JFK's assasination are published.

But do they contain

anything truly revelatory?

We ask one former doubter

of the official version

whether they changed his mind.

Good evening.

Not since the Spanish Civil War

and then the death of Franco has

Spain faced such crisis

and such uncertainty.

It is unthinkable to millions

in the country that they could face

each other in emnity, but tonight,

there is deep unease in Spain.

One of the most famous sayings

of the Spanish poet Lorca was

"To burn with desire and keep quiet

about it is the greatest punishment

we can bring on ourselves".

Those words might be ringing

in the ears of the members

of Catalonia's

regional government tonight.

So what will happen now?

Our Diplomatic Editor Mark

Urban is in Barcelona.

Well, Kirstie, it has been a

remarkable day, as you said, in the

history of the EU, as well as the

history of Spain and Catalonia. Lots

of people, actually, in this

country, don't want it to become

independent, but in the key events

that took place in that building

behind me here, the parliament,

there were 70 votes for it, out of a

total of 135 MPs. Two ab stained,

ten voted against, and 53 stayed

away altogether, tactics that

opponents have used before with the

referendum vote itself on the 1st of

October, rather a questionable

tactic, you might say. But anyway,

those that favoured independence had

enough to get the vote through, and

those events played out with

extraordinary drama throughout the

day.

After decades of sparring with the

government of post dictatorship

Spain, this was to be a day of

action, and emotion.

As MPs were summoned one by one to

vote on a parliamentary motion

declaring independence. Excitement

built in the crowd outside. What are

you hoping?

I hope yes. I don't

know. I don't know. I'm so nervous.

I don't have any idea.

Then the

results started coming. Yes in

favour, no against. The pattern

quickly becoming apparent, not

least, many MPs that opposed

independence boycotted the vote.

Then the counting, followed by the

inevitable result, and an explosion

of joy.

It's very... Very... Sorry, we are

very happy. In the past, after

Franco's dictatorship, we were

fighting to descend the Catalan

people. Now... Sorry, I can't...

For

us, it is a lifelong dream, so it's

the best thing we could hear right

now. So, we're really happy. We're

going to defend this Parliament, and

this government until the end. We

want to be free, and we are free

now.

So the Catalan parliament has

voted for independence, and this

crowd, at least, is loving it.

And as the national anthem was sung

and the Carver flowed, so many

questions for those looking on. And

for those peering down.

This is the helicopter downlink at

the headquarters of Catalonia's

police, as the demonstrations built

today. We were given exclusive

access. This operations room was set

up specifically for today's vote,

the message that policing is

carrying on in a professional and

nonpolitical way but among these

officers there are divided

loyalties, so if the Spanish

government now tries to take direct

control of this force, who will

Iturbe?

TRANSLATION:

We are a professional

organisation, we have a hierarchy,

we are ready to cope with any

situation. At a personal level, some

will feel more or less double with

this or that situation. But once we

put on the uniform, feelings and

personal ideologies are left one

side and we have a response or duty

to police the country that we serve.

And that the parliament itself, in

the heady hours after the vote,

people coming to terms with its

meaning, the Madrid government's top

man in Catalonia clear about one

thing, they're not going to accept

the declaration of Independence.

TRANSLATION:

The Spanish government

only had two choices, do nothing and

let put on six seed in his could it,

or proceed with normality in

Catalonia. It is clear the only

option is latter.

As the vote

supporters went to see whether the

government responds by trying to

seize key institutions of people,

anxious hours lie ahead.

The people

of the government in the European

Union are not going to help us, but

in each country of the European

Union, there is a lot of people with

solidarity, who wants to share

solidarity with us. There are people

in Scotland, people in Ireland, who

say they are going to help us. And

we believe a lot with solidarity

from the base people.

Well, the

Catalanpolymer's today was historic.

It is clear the authorities here

have no idea how to make a reality

of Independence. They have no plans

for a separate currency, border

controls or security forces, for

example. One MP that voted for it

said to me just now, "We have

absolutely no idea what will happen

next."

With the government responding by

sacking or trying to the Catalan

Cabinet, this crisis is gathering

pace.

TRANSLATION: Iraq today, I have

dissolved the Catalan parliament. On

the 21st of December, regional

elections will be held. Through the

late afternoon and evening,

supporters gathered. Volunteer

fireman ready to defend the new

Republic, and hundreds of Catalan

mailers, bearing their stars of

office giving political support. But

everyone is unsure about what the

coming days hold.

It's curious, but is it in some ways

dangerous?

She believes it is not.

She doesn't

know what can happen tomorrow. It

won't be easy.

Catalan leaders have

seized their moment, and are now

apparently relying on over reaction

by Madrid to shape the path ahead.

But away from the demonstrations,

many Catalans are uncertain about

the wisdom of this, and the Prime

Minister in Madrid has an arsenal of

options at his disposal.

With us now

is one of those MPs who voted for

independence in that historic motion

today.

Antoni Castella,

leader of the Democrats

for Catalunya, part of

the pro-independence coalition.

Let's start with the latest moves

from good, President Rajoy says the

government here is dismissed, will

they accept that?

No, they're not

going to accept that. The Catalan

government just announced that it is

not anymore and autonomous Gottman.

That is the provision of the

government, so they announced they

are not going to accept.

This has

just happened?

This happened half an

hour ago. So, let's see what the

next step that it's going to do from

the Spanish government.

In terms of

the people who didn't want this to

happen, and there are a lot of them

in this country, how are you going

to carry them with you on this

journey?

Yeah, that's very

important, but in democracy, that's

why we need a referendum. There was

80% of the people in Catalonia, they

wanted a referendum. That's very

important, for instance. Finally, in

October, we had a referendum, and

that is the way you can count

everybody. So now there is a

majority in Catalonia that voted.

It

was 2 million out of 7.5 million, so

it was...

There is no 7.5 million.

5.3 million votes. That is not a

majority.

If we tell you something,

it is a referendum. The 90% voted

yes. If you look at Brexit, for

instance, it was less than that.

Nobody is saying nothing about that.

Those are the rules of the

referendum. Everybody could go to

vote. So the result, and the

guarantees are there. The government

of Catalonia, what we did just today

is just to get the response of what

was the responsibility of the

Republic.

How do you make it real

now, because EU countries, the

United States, all sorts of

countries around the world are

saying they are not going to

recognise you as an independent

country?

First of all, what we have

to do is what we did today,

recognise ourselves. Then what we

announce is this is going to be a

building, bottom-up process. We want

to do it with dialogue, with the

Spanish government, and the

international community. We are

going to take the next steps just

doing it progressive, and doing it

by dialogue. So let's see what's

going to happen in the next steps.

Of course, there is a conflict of

legalities. We think we have the

right, we think we have the right of

democracy, because the people voted.

And we think that we have two fight

it to build the new Republic. That's

not going to be something for

tomorrow. It's going to be something

that we will be holding by

negotiation. And we ask for

responsibly to to the kingdom of

Spain, and we think that the

political problems has to be solved

with politics.

Dramatic days ahead,

clearly. Anthony Castagna, thank you

very much.

Thank you very much.

So tonight the Spanish Prime Ministe

Mariano Rajoy,

has announced he is firing

the entire Catalan Government

and suspending its Parliament.

For many Catalans, their identity,

their family language and culture

is what they fought for against

Franco, fought for and lost,

many great grandparents,

grandparents and parents

died fighting for Catalonia.

Then, Catalonia's autonomy

was enshrined

in Spain's 1978 constitution.

But that Constitution,

forged three years after Franco's

death for the newly democratic

country, stated the indissoluble

unity of the Spanish nation.

That is the basis

for Madrid's stand.

The question is can the Constitution

hold, and will Carlos Puigemont be

arrested for sedition?

We're joined by Alfredo Pastor,

the former Spanish economics

minister, who we spoke to last night

before all this happened.

Good evening again.

Good evening.

I

wonder if you just heard Antoni

Castella saying that in Barcelona

they have announced provisional

government of the Republic?

I heard

that.

What do you make of it.

The

reasoning is impeccable only it is

based on false premises. The

referendum was not a referendum that

could be recognised by anybody. The

Catalan parliament had no legal

authority to set up such a

referendum. And the newly declared

republic is outside the

Constitution, which is the

instrument we have to frame our

democracy.

What do you think happens

now?

That is a good question. It

seems to me that President Rajoy has

taken the less risky way of the many

risky alternatives but it is a risky

alternative because we can expect

some kind of resistance in the

streets and probably as Mr Castella

says, on the part of the government

which has just been sent home. You

will see that it is in everyone's

interest to have elections. In fact

everyone was asking for elections

yesterday and everybody breathes a

sigh of relief when Carles

Puigdemont said that he would call a

snap election. I feel much more

comfortable to know that in two

months we will have a proper

election and meanwhile, the Spanish

government will just administer the

day-to-day business of the

Catalonian institutions.

The day

business of Catalonia might turn

violent. Last night you set on

Newsnight you would not be surprised

if Carles Puigdemont was sent to

jail. -- last night he said that.

Before you send someone to jail you

have to try them. And if that

happens, that will take some time.

So that's nothing immediate.

These

elections that Mr Rajoy said would

be held on December 23. If the

majority of those elections are for

independence for Catalonia we are in

the same situations again and then

what happens to the constitution?

Note, it is difficult for Mr Rajoy

to talk to the Carles Puigdemont

government. When the Carles

Puigdemont government comes out of

elections that have not done

anything illegal then they can talk.

Thank you for joining us.

Obviously, this is

a huge test for Spain.

Catalunya makes up 16% of

the Spanish population

and nearly a fifth of its economy.

But its also a headache

for the whole of Europe.

So far the UK, France,

Germany and the US have

lined up with Madrid,

the Scottish Government alone has

said that the Catalans must be free

to determine their own future.

So how will this play out in Spain -

will it be peaceful or violent,

and how will

the Catalan crisis resonate

in other European countries?

Joining me to discuss this is LSE

professor of Spanish

studies Sebastian Balfour,

former British Foreign Secretary Sir

Malcolm Rifkind and journalist

and Scottish independence campaigner

Lesley Riddoch who returned

from Barcelona this evening.

Good evening, Sebastian Balfour, is

Spain equipped to deal with this?

I

don't think so. I think the odds on

a peaceful transition from control

from Madrid is very very poor. First

we will see widespread civil unrest.

There's no doubt about it. We

already saw some problems with

October one, the use of violence by

police.

And problems within the

police.

So widespread civil unrest

of one sort or another, the

independence movement has got a

tradition of peaceful protest yet

also imaginative protest. That is

not something the Spanish police

will be good at dealing with. We are

also likely to see obstruction and

the civil servants, the firefighters

are we saw demonstrating on October

the 3rd, and strikes as well. So I

think this is going to be almost

impossible to contain.

And you talk

about civil disobedience and you

fear a descent into violence.

Yes. I

fear that descended into violence

may not come from the independence

movement so much as the reaction by

the forces of law and order.

Is the

constitution and immovable force?

No. It could be amended. It would be

a complicated process. It would

involve a referendum across all of

Spain, but it is something that has

been raised and discussed and is set

by a number of people, including

people in Catalonia. I'm talking

about the mayor row of Barcelona,

for example.

Let me bring in Lesley

Riddoch, who is just back from

Barcelona. Lesley

Riddoch, who is just back from

Barcelona. Lesley, you have heard

that the international position is

not to recognise this declaration of

Independence but to stand with

Madrid. The Catalans to have any

chance would they not have to have

international support, and it isn't

there.

It is not there at the moment

but there are deep by release in

this. At the moment the Council of

the European Union is held by

Estonia, which declared its own

independence unilaterally in 1991

and had no rush of Western nations

recognising it. It was little ice

land that recognise and first,

exactly the same story one year

before with Lithuania. The West

wasn't willing to intervene because

it preferred to shore up the

Russians in the hope that they would

not return to come in as. So within

recent memory we've got a very clear

experience of a small nation wanting

to establish its rights to self

determination but of course when it

is peeling away from the soviet

union everyone eventually fell in

behind that and now that little

country is now the leader, now has

the presidency of the European

Union!

If you look at what happened

in Scotland, the independence

referendum did not pass there but

there was a build-up of support. Yet

we know from Catalonia that the

autonomous area is deeply split on

independence. You might say, yes,

42% turnout, but a lot of people

were not in favour of independence

in Catalonia and did not vote at

all. So it is hard to determine what

the support is.

You could point out

that the present UK Government got

30% of the vote. If you put that to

one side, and this comes as a

difficult thing to say for the

support of Scottish independence,

that the UK did pretty well actually

by the political difference that

emerged between Scotland and the

democratically elected government

there, and the UK. It allowed a

legally binding referendum. It did

not play constitutional politics. It

didn't hide behind the law, it

called a spade a spade. That is what

the Catalan people want.

Malcolm

Rifkind, you were there in Bosnia.

What do you make of what Sebastian

says about the possibility of civil

unrest becoming something darker.

We

should be under no illusions. This

is the worst crisis in Western

Europe has faced since the end of

the Second World War. Over the next

month the Spanish government, having

dismissed the Catalan government,

has two imposes authority in

Catalonia. It can't just wait till

the election with no government that

it recognises. If it tries to do

that, which I think it will, the

Catalan separatists are a minority

of Catalonia but some of them will

fight back and therefore the risk is

some form of Spanish civil war

breaking out. I'm not saying that it

will happen. I'm saying that it is a

serious risk and probably will

happen in some form.

I will put this

to Sebastien but tell me what the

impact on Europe would be. Part of

the reason, one might say that other

countries are falling in behind

Madrid is that we are in a period

where each country has its own issue

with autonomy.

It is more than that.

Lesley 's comment about Estonia was

irrelevant. Catalonia itself is

deeply divided, 38% voted for

independence, 62% either boycotted

the election or voted against it.

You'll have a divided Catalonia with

the whole of the rest of Spain of

one of you.

You say not since the

Second World War in Europe... We are

talking about Yugoslavia...

I said

Western Europe.

That's right, that

is a very dark thought, is it not?

I

do not agree that this could become

another civil war. All the force is

on one side. Yet what that site has

not reckoned with is the creativity

of and the obstruction they are

likely to face in the governance of

Catalonia. And this is where, in a

sense, calling elections by December

21 is better than running it for

much longer because they are not

going to be able to run it.

Lesley

Riddoch, Mariano Rajoy says this is

Europe's battle, has Europe got a

place in sorting this out.

Of course

it does. As the Scottish Government

says there is a moral and political

responsibility to do something about

this test portion and use of force

on October one, and the impasse we

are in now. There's a constitutional

on separation in Spain but clearly

there is a democratically elected

government with a mandate to pursue

independence. Now there has to be

some sort of talking here. I grew up

in Northern Ireland and saw several

periods of direct rule and I think

Malcolm Rifkind would probably agree

that in hindsight that was holding

pattern only. You've got to get to

the point of recognising a political

difference and having the talks that

the UK Government was smart enough

to have a Scotland. Scotland is

being seen as the gold standard

already.

Thank you all very much

indeed.

This morning the US

government released 2800

previously classified files

on the assassination

of President John F Kennedy in 1963.

Donald Trump held back

some of the files at the

request of the FBI and the CIA,

to the fury of those who have always

doubted the official

version of events.

But he insisted the public deserves

to be fully informed, and

that eventually it will

all be made available.

These are perhaps the most

contested 30 seconds

of footage in US history -

a conspiracy theorist's dream.

The official verdict, of course,

was that the shooter,

Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone.

But inevitably, the government's

refusal to publish all of

the 5 million pages of official

documents on the case has fed

a deep suspicion

that something was fishy.

Today, we learned of one CIA memo

that suggested the shooter met a KGB

agent in Mexico City just months

before the shooting in Dealey Plaza.

Another memo suggested Soviet

officials feared a US missile

strike after the event.

But this is the era of fake news,

distrust in the Washington

establishment, and a president that

questioned Obama's

birth certificate.

As long as there are documents held

back, redactions still in place,

there will be those that simply

don't believe the official narrative

of the assassination of the 35th

President of the United States.

Joining me from Washington

is the journalist Jefferson Morley,

contributing writer with Newsweek

and author of The Ghost, which tells

the story of how a CIA

counter-intelligence chief monitored

Lee Harvey Oswald from 1959 to 1963.

Good evening to you.

Hi.

What do you

make of the release of the files?

What happened yesterday was

disappointing. President Trump

released 2800 records and about

25,000 records remain secret. By law

they should have been made public

yesterday. That didn't happen.

President Trump extended the secrecy

around the records for another six

months. The agencies have had years

to prepare for this. The president

has had his entire term to breathe

ever there is so the intent of

Congress and the law to see full

disclosure has been faded and that

is unfortunate. It will encourage

conspiratorial speculation, which

given government malfeasance in the

case and the government 's extensive

knowledge of the accused assassin

before the assassination is entirely

justified.

So you think that 20%

that has been held back might well

contain something. What did the CIA

say, it is about protecting sources?

Do you give any credibility to that?

We've heard this since the Pentagon

papers that the release of secret

material would endanger lives. It is

virtually never proven true and I

doubt it will be true of these

records. There may be a handful of

records that have real security

information in them but we are

talking about 25,000 documents that

were withheld from public view. They

are not all crucial to national

security.

We have not been through

them all but by and large you don't

hold with the idea that John F.

Kennedy was assassinated by Lee

Harvey Oswald. With what you have

heard today, Hazard bolsters your

view, undermined it or giving you

another idea? -- has it bolstered

your view?

What we got from the CIA

and the FBI last night was that the

least consequential records are

being kept secret. There was nothing

that changed my mind. It was very

telling that to the one interesting

document that said something new was

an interview with the CIA director

in 1975, who was asked, was Lee

Harvey Oswald and agent of the CIA.

We never get the answer. That's the

end of the document. That is

emblematic of what happened last

night. A very truncated release that

evaded the intent of Congress to

have full disclosure.

Given that

Donald Trump's shtick has always

been about distrust of the CIA and

Washington, that doesn't play to his

base. Our people are upset with him

because of this?

I think a lot of

people are. One senator wrote on

Twitter today that it was ridiculous

that the CIA was trying to continue

the cover-up. It was really

disappointing. We had a law in place

that was very clear. The president

and the agencies evaded the law

because the material in the

remaining records, the remaining 80%

of the records that were to be made

public today will be deeply

embarrassing to the FBI and the CIA,

and show malfeasance in the case of

the assassination.

Briefly in a 20%

not released, will find something

interesting?

Absolutely. There's no

question about it!

Thank you very

much for joining us tonight. We

await that of interest. Just time

for some front pages. The Times goes

for a headline, Spain on the brink,

Madrid imposing direct rule, the

Daily Telegraph says that cracks

show in the EU as Catalans back

independence. And we know tonight,

too late for the papers that in

Catalonia they have declared a

provisional government for the

Republic. That's all we have time

for. Emily will be back on Monday.