The Catalan volte face that has disgusted Spain

This weekend saw protests across Spain after the acting prime minister, socialist Pedro Sánchez, agreed to a general amnesty for Catalan separatists in return for parliamentary votes to enable him to stay in power. The amnesty will benefit hundreds of separatists facing fines or imprisonment for their involvement in the illegal referendum on independence for Catalonia in 2017, the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence and the concomitant street violence.

There have been nine consecutive nights of often violent protest outside the socialist party’s headquarters in Madrid. But Sunday’s demonstrations, convened by the conservative opposition, held at noon in over 50 Spanish cities and attended by hundreds of thousands, were peaceful. At the protest I attended in Ávila (population 57,000), a provincial capital in central Spain, some 2,500 people waved flags, applauded the Spanish national anthem, shouted ‘Viva España’ and cheered enthusiastically when the speaker said ‘History will show we stood up to those who tried to destroy our democracy.’