Light Shift

There was a moment this morning, under the trees, when the three-quarters moon cast a shadow as the dawn light from the East caught the topmost leaves. The moon's brilliance outshone the sun.

That is how it feels in Catalonia. The cool, quiet, clean light of a tiny planet outshining the raging solar flares from Madrid.

Catalonia has outmanoeuvred Madrid at every step of the referendum process, keeping calm and carrying on while Madrid sent in its violent militarised police to beat people standing in line to vote. The Catalan government successfully delivered voting slips, envelopes and voting boxes to more than 2,000 polling stations despite a vast operation over weeks by the Spanish police force. Crowds of people, this writer included, slept over at the polling stations and barricaded the entrances to stop armed police intervention, all so that more than two million people could cast their votes. Teams of hackers kept our voting system operational despite mass attacks by others, assumed to be the (patently slightly useless) Spanish 'intelligence' service.

And now the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, has made the move that is check-mate to Madrid's blundering game. Having won the referendum he has declared independence, but has asked the Catalan parliament to delay the actual moment 'for a few weeks' to give time to Madrid to negotiate.  A brilliant move, this forces Madrid to take a decision; carry on the violence, the arrests, the trumped up charges against Catalan politicians? Or accept that the Catalan people have spoken and negotiate a settlement, possibly with an international mediator.

Madrid will know the consequences of the first option; an immediate confirmation of independence and widespread revulsion, here and internationally, of the Spanish government.

But don't rely on Madrid to care. It is perfectly probable that the Spanish government will carry on its long tradition of bullying the Catalans, in the vain hope that they will submit. International opprobium does not seem to concern Madrid.

The comments on the village street last night were approving: Puigdemont had made another brilliant move. People here have a lot of confidence in him - one person told me that 'selecting Puigdemont was the best thing that [former president] Artur Mas ever did'. He and his team of advisers have played a brilliant game so far, and the expectation here is that the team have worked out the next few moves in the game, whatever Madrid do.

So now we wait. Wait for the next move from Madrid. And ready ourselves for a long, steep road to independence.