‘The people have the final word’

It is the only solution possible. It was not our priority, which was to agree a referendum with the State. But what has primacy is the right of Catalans to vote. The final word cannot be had by bureaucratic, legal, political or economic elites, which is the model they ask us to accept. No. With such a relevant issue, the people have to have the final word.

For us there isn’t. For the Spanish government going back is possible: it knows that up to the last minute the door to dialogue is open, and if it believes it can find agreement with the majority of people of Catalonia to vote, we can go back to the priority of an agreed referendum.

I’ve cut myself off from a lot of it. In reading one, you read all of them. There is a sort of single newsroom, with a unique way of thinking, providing Spanish public opinion with a single narrative of what is happening in Catalonia.

We knew the only alternative they think they have is the option of fear, of persecution, of the repeated use of the immense power of the state. You don’t have to be brave to do so. What is brave is facing it.