Sinn Féin’s stance on Catalan independence is deeply hypocritical

In a little over two weeks’ time, on October 1st, the regional government in Barcelona will try to hold an illegal and unconstitutional poll on Catalan independence.

A boycott by opponents means the secessionists should get the result they want, with implications for Europe that could make Brexit look harmless.

In Northern Ireland, however, the Catalan question will be as simple as always, namely: which side are you on?

Sinn Féin has already decided it is on the side of the separatists.

London and Dublin must be very careful on the North

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In a statement his week, it called for October’s vote to be “internationally recognised” – meaning the international community should disregard Spanish law and encourage the potentially violent break-up of a major western democracy.

“There is nothing to fear,” added the Sinn Féin statement.

Consequently, unionists will support the Spanish unionists – an outcome less inevitable than it sounds.

It should not be a given that Irish republicans endorse separatist movements. Are they not trying to unite Ireland, where they regard unionists as the separatists? Should unionists not see this the other way around?

Of course, we are all familiar with the republican position on national self-determination, Ireland as a natural nation and Ulster Protestants as part of that nation.

Ulster-Scots of Spain

It can be seen how this might extend Irish sympathies to the Basques, set apart for so long by their unique and ancient language.

But the Catalans? It is only an exaggeration to call them the Ulster-Scots of Spain. Their language may be more than a dialect but it is hardly the distinct tongue with separate roots they pretend – it has 70 per cent mutual intelligibility with Spanish, higher than between many dialects of German.

Claims of a separate Catalan culture are heavily premised on a handful of traditional customs, plus minor variations from Spanish music and cuisine. Catalonia has a long history, including of self-government, stretching back to the middle ages. Yet a British equivalent would not be Scotland or even Wales but an old English kingdom such as Mercia. More to the point, an Irish equivalent would be Ulster.

There is a relatively recent comparison to the partition of Ireland, as Catalonia is an industrial north resentful of subsidising a less prosperous south.

We love looking at our reflections in trouble spots around the globe, yet we rarely reflect on them

A similar movement exists in northern Italy, where there is widespread support and occasional majority sympathy for secession. Although this case is usually made in economic terms, a nationalist case for it has also been concocted.

The Latin name for Cisalpine Gaul – Padania – has been dredged out of history, creating a regional distinctness with a Celtic pedigree.

The languages spoken in northern Italy are quite distinct from standard Italian but have been classified as dialects for the sake of political harmony. This has been turned into a grievance.

Why does Sinn Féin not sympathise with this cause?

The official answer, presumably, is that several of the parties of Italy’s Northern League are associated with right-wing and anti-immigrant sentiment (although they deny racism).

Should that be enough to render a much wider nationalist movement beyond the pale? Is northern Italian separatism not in some ways less right-wing than its Spanish counterpart, being less based around a sense of ethnicity?

The left-right distinction does not seem to be enough to explain how two comparable calls for nationhood are viewed so differently.

To put it another way, if Catalonia became independent then elected a Northern League-type government, would it no longer deserve independence in Irish eyes? In that case, what would its independence mean?

Parochial worldview

The purpose of these questions, beyond the fun of pointing out everyone’s inconsistencies, is to hope for a less parochial worldview in Northern Ireland.

We love looking at our reflections in trouble spots around the globe, yet we rarely reflect on them.

Perhaps the best-known example of this is unionist support for Israel, generally expressed as solidarity against terrorism.

Israel proudly traces its foundation to an anti-British terror campaign, explicitly modelled on the original IRA.

So what do unionists mean by terrorism? If they looked harder at that question in the Israeli mirror, they might have a more honest and consistent position on the founding of Northern Ireland.

For nationalists and especially republicans, there seems to be a quandary abroad about nationalism itself. When does it apply and what is it for? If one group of people on a particular patch of ground is worthy of self-determination, why not another?

In Freudian terms, how small do nationalism’s differences have to be before they become pure narcissism?

There may be no objectively correct and universal answers to these questions but just asking them might point to better answers within Ireland - certainly better than the international test republicans currently set for unionists, which is that the rest of the world thinks they are Irish. The rest of world thinks Catalans are Spanish.

In the meantime, as a unionist, I will be shouting: “Viva Espana.” Except when it comes to Gibraltar, obviously.