Barcelona's mayor backs the coup

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, makes no secret of his opposition to Brexit. He has not, however, hung a Bollocks to Brexit banner on his city hall.

Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona, pretends to deny her support for independence. She has hung a yellow ribbon, the symbol of Catalan independence on her city hall. She was forced against her will to take it down during the recent election campaign but now it is back. It goes without saying that it is illegal for a public building to display a politically partial symbol, and Spain has strict laws about which flags must be flown, but how can this disgrace be stopped? The Guardia Urbana (city police), who would have to remove it, are under her command. A  sidelight on this is that in a finely balanced council, Colau was invested with the “unconditional support” (his words) of Manuel Valls, a former French prime minister who was born in Barcelona. He stood as an independent but following the failure of his campaign he moved closer to PSOE, apparently in the hope of ingratiating himself and obtaining a post in Pedro Sánchez’ new government.

As if that were not enough, the city’s buses and metro stations have started sporting pro-independence advertisements sponsored by a secessionist group called Òmnium and referring to an event in the Supreme Court trial when one of the defendants said “We’ll do it again.”


This is in breach of the city’s contracts with its advertising suppliers, which ban “ideological messages”. It goes without saying that the police, Guardia Urbana or the Mossos (Catalan police), will never act against nationalist excesses but court action can be taken. This is slow and expensive though, and far from certain of success in the lower levels of the Catalan judiciary.

So, sadly, the pollution of public property by illegal secessionist propaganda, paid for of course out of the public purse, will continue.

I started by mentioning London. There is, however, a UK precedent for exactly such a thing. In 1985, at the height of the Troubles (as the IRA terrorist campaign was known) Belfast city hall displayed a banner opposing the Anglo-Irish Agreement, a forerunner of the Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to Ireland. The omens are not good. Today 34 years later, Ulster still says NO to any agreement to solve the Irish border problem that has stymied Brexit.

Source (in Spanish)

Crónica Global

Colau permite la campaña de Òmnium que vacila al Supremo

(Colau allows the Òmnium campaign that makes fun of the Supreme Court)