I've spent last night and this morning watching the amazing scenes from Catalonia, as Spanish police in full riot gear have beaten and shot voters and seized ballot boxes in an effort to prevent an independence referendum, injuring more than 800 people. And despite all that, the referendum happened, with 90% of the 2.3 million votes counted supporting independence. A further 700,000 votes were seized and were unable to be counted.
Catalans saw graphicly what their choices were today: voting, or fascism. Resolve things democraticly, or by violence. And those of them who were able to vote emphatically chose democracy.
What happens next? The Catalan Parliament will declare independence. And based on today, there will likely be another outrageous spasm of violence from Franco's heirs in Madrid (they've been shipping tanks in). So we're likely to have a European "democracy" and party to the CHR behaving like the Uzbeks or the Chinese (or indeed their fascist forbears) in suppressing dissent. That's not acceptable, and the European Union needs to get involved to stop it.