Denmark: Local election set-back for Social Democrats; wins for the left and centre-right

Denmark’s local elections have delivered a stark warning to the governing Social Democrats, and handed big wins to both the far-left and the centre-right, amidst an historically low voter turn-out.

Denmark’s municipal and regional elections, held on November 16, brought mixed results across the political spectrum. The biggest wins came for the centre-right Conservatives and the far left’s Enhedslisten (the “Red-Green Alliance”), but the stand-out story is the disastrous result for the governing Social Democrats. Poor results across the country and in the capital are a warning to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that the political ground has shifted beneath her government as she faces revelations of political impropriety, a new wave of Covid-19, and simmering discontent over issues both local and crossing the local-national divide, such as the mishandling of healthcare and childcare.

Already navigating an unfolding scandal over the forced closure of Denmark’s mink industry after a Covid-19 outbreak last year, the pandemic’s resurgence has brought into sharp relief government mismanagement of the recent nurse’s strike. Underpaid and under-resourced, nurses rejected a pay offer that fell short of their demands, only to have it foisted on them when the government legislated an end to negotiations. There are fears that future waves of the virus could drive an exodus of nurses and break the back of a public health system run by underfunded regional government. Similar issues of pay and recruitment plague the childcare sector, which is administered at a municipal level.

While the Social Democrats remained the largest party in local elections, as they have been for over 100 years, there were heavy losses across the country, with retreats in 70 of the 98 council areas. The damage was most obvious in the party’s urban heartlands, and in the four largest cities (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg) support dropped by over 10 percent. The result was worsened by a record low turnout nation-wide - the third lowest in a century at just 67.2 percent - that reached its nadir in many urban working class areas. The worst participation rate came in the area around Tingbjerg, Copenhagen, where only one in three of those eligible cast their vote.

It was in Copenhagen, too, where the Social Democrats suffered their greatest and most symbolic defeat. After 112 years, they are no longer the most voted-for party on Copenhagen Council, slumping to just 17.3 percent support. They were overtaken by the radical left party Enhedslisten, topping the polls for the first time with a record 24.6 percent - nearly a quarter of the electorate. As well as taking the party vote, Enhedslisten’s lead candidate, Line Barfod, took the most direct candidate votes.

The Copenhagen result has several causes, but a key theme was development, with the city caught in the grip of a housing crisis, fuelled by housing speculation and development firms such as Blackstone. The market having failed to fix the crisis, the Social Democrat-run council and previous liberal government cooked up a controversial scheme to create an artificial island, “Lynetteholmen” in Copenhagen harbour to house 35,000 new residents, funded through loans to be paid off through the sale of public land.

The project’s potential traffic congestion alone is astounding: it would require transporting 80 million tonnes of soil through the city - some 350 truck journeys per day. The climate and environmental impact would be disastrous, and - rather than making housing more affordable - the initiative will create a new market for private real estate speculation. Lynetteholmen faces considerable opposition from local communities, climate and environment NGOs, and affordable housing advocates, but approval was rammed through the national parliament by the Social Democrats and the right, and given to development company By & Havn (“City & Port”) to implement.

A similar issue emerged in Copenhagen’s south, where the planned destruction and development of one of the city’s very few extensive nature areas - Amager Fælled, which hosts deer, endangered salamander, lark nests and other wildlife - was met with fierce resistance and a popular protest movement. Ostensibly, the project - also tendered to By & Havn - was to meet the city’s growing housing needs, but again the reality does not match the rhetoric. In both cases, the intersection of housing, climate and the environment played to the strengths of the left, and Enhedslisten in particular.

Finally, some more specific issues have hurt the Social Democrats, with former Lord Mayor - and vice president of the party - Frank Jensen being forced to resign last year after multiple sexual harassment allegations, and an attempt to fob off the issue by offering to be “part of the solution” to the problems he had caused. As a small wave of MeToo scandals hit the country’s political elite, Jensen was forced to resign his posts, and his replacement at council level has failed to impress.

The result in Copenhagen was an outstanding success for Enhedslisten, tapping popular support for action on the climate emergency and housing affordability, and from young voters. Despite its historic result and largest-party status - which would traditionally afford it the position of Lord Mayor - Enhedslisten was locked out when the Social Democrats formed a block with the right-wing parties to install their candidate Sophie Hæstorp Andersen instead. Reflecting the party’s new size, Enhedslisten nonetheless took both the Environment and Technical, and Social Affairs, deputy mayor portfolios on council.

Enhedslisten also saw success on Denmark’s “summer isle”, Bornholm, taking 23.1 percent on the back of a 17 percent swing among the islands 40,000 residents. The ruling Social Democrats and liberal party Venstre had pushed through a disastrous municipal budget that slashed social security while splurging millions on a new town hall. Enhedslisten - led by deputy mayor Morten Riis - were cut out of the decision-making, and quickly became the face of opposition. As in Copenhagen, however, the numbers weren’t there for a left mayor, and Enhedslisten lent its support to the Conservatives for the role, breaking the Venstre-Social Democrats duopoly and winning a re-negotiation of the budget.

This election saw Enhedslisten’s greatest results at the municipal level in its 32 year history. It elected 114 councillors on 68 councils - a slight drop on 2017 - but reached a new high in overall support, 7.3 percent nationwide. The results in Copenhagen and Bornholm were a high water mark, making a serious statement about the party’s role in Danish politics and strengthening its negotiation position in the national parliament. Unlike the Socialist People’s Party, however, which held onto its single mayor on the island of Langeland, Enhedslisten failed to win the position of mayor in any council, with parties of both right and “left” uniting against it.

A Blue Denmark?

A struggle of a different kind unfolded on the right wing of Danish politics, with liberal party Venstre suffering modest setbacks and the Conservative Peoples Party earning the largest swing and most impressive gains of any party. Meanwhile, the extreme right saw a splintering, as the Danish People Party lost more than half its votes, and its new, more pro-market, competitor on the right fringe, Nye Borgerlige (“New Right”) failing to fully capitalise. The results continue an emerging trend of the Conservative party leading the charge on Denmark’s political right.

Venstre had anticipated worse losses than it experienced, and its poor results paled in comparison to those of its main opponent, the Social Democrats. Some losses were self-inflicted, however, such as in Tønder, where internal discontent led a large part of the local branch to run its own list of candidates, costing Venstre the mayoral post in the area. As a result, the Schleswig Party - representing the German-speaking minority in southern Denmark - took the helm of the council for the first time since 1946.

The biggest winner was the Conservative Peoples Party, which saw a swing of 6.4 percent (over 10 percent in 15 councils) and improved support in nearly every council area. The party took over the position of mayor in several councils, including Bornholm and in Kolding, where the Socialist People’s Party’s former chairman and foreign minister, Villy Søvndal - infamous for his role in the sale of the state energy company DONG - gifted the Conservatives the mayor’s seat in order to keep Venstre out.

Despite this, the Conservatives suffered a humiliation in their stronghold of Frederiksberg - a wealthy enclave within Copenhagen with its own council. Up until now, it had been the Conservative’s crown jewel - under their control for 112 years - but a clever campaign, and a strong left vote (including a surge in support for Enhedslisten, which secured second spot with 17.5 percent, ahead of the Social Democrats) gave the area a social democratic mayor for the first time.

Further to the right, a different drama was being played out. The far right populist Danish Peoples Party lost more than half its votes and 133 seats, losing support in every single municipality. The party, which once polled over 20 percent, dropped from 8.7 percent in 2017 to only 4.1 percent, prompting national leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl to announce his resignation and call a special party congress. With internal squabbling and no obvious replacement, and leading figures in the party facing legal and criminal investigations, the party appears to be in a state of deepening crisis.

Even so, perhaps only half of the support lost by the Danish People's Party went to its more extreme rival Nye Borgerlige, in the first serious local challenge between the two. Nye Borgerlige increased its representation by 63 seats, but many disaffected Danish People’s Party voters seem to have stayed home, or lent their support to the Conservatives or Venstre. Some may also have supported the Social Democrats, who have adopted many of the xenophobic immigration and social policies of the far right.

Ultimately, however, the main story remains the bloody lip Danish voters have delivered to the government. Before summer, it looked unassailable, coolly managing the pandemic crisis through sensible lockdown measures and Keynesian supports to workers and business that made life difficult for rivals on both sides. Adopting a far-right position on migration and refugees, it removed the issue as a political threat - breaching the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Denmark was the first signatory, in a cynical move to maintain electoral support.

This overall strategy gave the Social Democrats a powerful position at the very centre of Danish politics, capable of forming majorities to both the right and left. However, it also fed a tendency towards arrogance and overreach reflected in the mishandled mink scandal, the nurses strike, and development projects in Copenhagen. These latest results show that in politics, such moments are fleeting, and change is coming from both a restored conservative right, and from a re-energised radical left, that has a project for change.

Don’t Panic - Analysis and Strategy on Right-Wing Populism

Over the past decade, many countries have seen the rise and consolidation of support for right-wing populist movements and parties. This development is being increasingly reflected in parliaments and governments alike and now poses a serious challenge, both to parties of the left and to the values at the heart of liberal democracy.

For the past two years, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO) has teamed up with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office (RLS) on a joint project to address the rise of the populist right and the future of European democracy. This collaboration brought together the political left in Germany, Sweden and Denmark for a number of workshops and has now culminated in the publication of a new anthology: Don’t Panic – Analysis and Strategy on Right-Wing Populism.

Contributors include political actors and analysts such as Swedish anti-fascist researcher Mathias Wåg, DIE LINKE policy advisor Kerstin Wolter, Enhedslisten MP Rosa Lund and Vänsterpartiet Party Secretary Aron Etzler, among others. Divided into three sections, the book examines the development of far-right populism in Germany, Sweden and Denmark and the counter-strategies and tactics deployed by the left. It is an informative and thought-provoking contribution to understanding and combating right-wing populism in Europe and sets out some visions for building a stronger left alternative.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office. 

Download the book as a PDF.

Epidemic Economy: A Left Perspective

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a global economic recession whose consequences will continue to be felt for years to come, but what comes next? Will we see greater monopolisation and concentration of market power? What, if anything, have we learned since the last financial crisis in 2009? Can the left take advantage of the crisis to win popular support for a new course, for a more social and sustainable alternative?

On 10 June, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO) partnered with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office to host a debate with economist Dr Karen Helveg Petersen, author of Rent Capitalism: Economic Theory and Global Reality (2017), to look at the challenges and opportunities of the coronavirus crisis from a left-wing perspective. 

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Nordic Socialism During and After the COVID-19 Crisis

On 27 May, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO), together with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office, hosted a debate with Pelle Dragsted, former MP for Danish left-wing party Enhedslisten and author of the new book Nordisk socialisme: På vej mod en demokratisk økonomi (‘Nordic Socialism: Towards an economic democracy’).

The past year-and-a-half has been extraordinary. The global coronavirus pandemic has caused millions of deaths and triggered an economic crisis on a scale not seen in generations. 

This crisis has exposed shortcomings in the neoliberal economic model, particularly in areas such as health and social services, as well as in overall economic democracy—weaknesses that could also serve as an opportunity for a more just, socially-oriented recovery. 

The challenge, however, is how the left can use the current crisis to push for the democratisation and redistribution of ownership, and secure greater economic democracy.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Spain re-opens controversial “Bateragune” case against Basque leaders

On December 14, the Spanish Supreme Court unanimously ordered a re-trial of the contentious 2011 “Bateragune” case against Arnaldo Otegi and other Basque pro-independence leaders, on charges for which they have already served prison sentences. The kafkaesque decision makes a mockery of the rule of law and is a reminder of the entrenched power the political right holds within Spain’s judiciary. The EU has made a great show of condemning breaches of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. Will it ever act on Spain’s abuses?

In 2011, Otegi - now general coordinator of the Basque abertzale (pro-independence) left party EH Bildu - was convicted along with Rafa Díez, Arkaitz Rodríguez, Sonia Jacinto and Miren Zabaleta, of trying to re-launch Batasuna, a political party declared illegal by Spain over links to the armed group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - “Basque Homeland and Freedom“). They had been arrested in October 2009 during raids on the headquarters of the left-wing pro-independence trade union LAB, and charged with trying to “re-form the leadership of Batasuna on the instructions of ETA".


Otegi has always maintained his innocence concerning what became known as the "Bateragune” case - after the Basque word for “meeting place”. He argued that he and his co-accused were in fact meeting to design a new peace initiative to end the decades-long bloody violence plaguing his homeland. The arrests also brought a huge public response in the Basque Country - four days after the arrests, 50,000 supporters demonstrated for their release - and, despite the arrests, a new Basque peace initiative was indeed announced at a press conference of 100 abertzale left leaders the following month.

The logic of Spain’s charges is even more grotesque when you consider that, more than any other individual, Otegi was responsible for convincing ETA of the need to end their armed campaign. He was key in initiating and guiding the broad democratic discussion among pro-independence political activists that achieved firm popular support for this strategy. World-famous anti-apartheid and human rights activist Desmond Tutu described Otegi as “the leader of the Basque peace process”.


Nonetheless, Otegi and Diez were sentenced to 10 years jail each, while Sonia Jacinto, Arkaitz Rodriguez and Miren Zabaleta received eight years. The Supreme Court later reduced Otegi’s sentence to six and a half years, which he served in Logroño prison before being released in 2016. Meanwhile, ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire in 2010, announced its decommissioning, apologised for the harm it had caused, and by 2018 it had completely dismantled, ending all its activity after a five-decade campaign.

Otegi’s legal team appealed his sentence to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which in November 2018 overturned the original trial for having violated his fundamental rights. In particular, the European court concluded that Article 6.1 of the European Convention had been violated due to the court's lack of impartiality, with at least one judge having made comments indicating a pre-existing prejudice against Otegi. Nonetheless, it still took the Spanish courts almost two whole years to act on the decision of the ECHR, finally annulling the convictions in July this year.

By this time, Otegi and his co-defendants had already served their prison sentences and been released. It was only with the annulment of the trial in Spain, however, that a further part of Otegi’s sentence - imposed after he left prison - was ended, lifting a ban on him from holding public office. Predictably, when the annulment of Otegi’s ban on holding public office came, it did so just three weeks after the Basque Autonomous Community elections. While EH Bildu achieved its best result ever, finishing as the second largest party with 28 percent of the vote, Otegi was unable to stand as a candidate.


When Otegi was arrested in 2009, Basque pro-independence activists condemned it as an attempt to sabotage and undermine political initiatives developed by the Basque pro-independence movement to resolve the ongoing conflict and to strengthen democracy in the Basque Country. Indeed, the arrests were the first step in a five year period of intensified persecution by the Spanish state, not only of pro-independence activists, but of advocates of a Basque peace process in particular.

While Otegi’s credentials as peacemaker are widely recognised, the Spanish state’s policy remains that "everything that surrounds ETA is ETA”. This flawed outlook saturates Madrid’s attitude to the Basque people. In 2016, several Basque youth in the small pro-independence town of Altsasu got into an argument in a bar with two members of Spain’s paramilitary Guardia Civil, in civilian clothes. While video evidence suggests the altercation went no further than heated words, eight youth were charged with “terrorism resulting in injury” and posing a “terrorism threat.” Their families are still fighting to have them freed.

In the Bateragune case, the Spanish prosecutor's office sought a re-trial on the basis that a mere “procedural error” should not lead to Otegi being cleared of the charges. All sixteen judges of the Spanish Supreme Court's criminal chamber apparently agreed, and unanimously ordered the repetition of the trial. Such a decision - to re-hold the trial, after the ECHR has overturned it, and the sentences have already been completed - is unprecedented, and exposes the shameless abuse of the Spanish court system as a weapon against Madrid’s critics.

The decision is a divisive issue even within the traditionally conservative judiciary, with Spain’s National Court recently arguing against a re-trial. The new trial will be held, not only after those accused have already finished their sentences, but also very much after the fact. In reality, Batasuna was never rebuilt, and ETA has lain down arms and long since ceased to exist - precisely because of the efforts of those once again accused of terrorism, and despite the repeated interference of the Spanish state.
 
Why, then, has the Supreme Court decided to re-open the case? One reason is that trials of the Basque independence movement in Spain are never simply legal - they are always political. The persecution of Otegi is not only an infringement of his individual rights, it is also an attack on the Basque movement’s peaceful path towards independence, and a further warning to anyone - Basque, Catalan or otherwise - that in the Spanish state, Madrid’s authority remains absolute.


On this front, at least, it certainly won’t work. Responding to the Supreme Court’s announcement, Otegi accused the courts of wanting to criminalise the leadership of the pro-independence nationalist left, adding “They didn't tame us, they didn't bend us, they won't subdue us! Smile, we shall overcome!”, while Arkaitz Rodríguez pointed out that “12 years after our arrest, after having spent 6 years in jail in an absolutely unfair and illegal way, after a European annulment and without even that organisation already existing, they have decided to try us again for belonging to ETA. Democracy? What democracy?”.

The court’s move could also destabilise the balance of forces in Spain’s fragmented parliament. It comes only days after Otegi's party helped Spain's minority left-wing government approve the Spanish budget on its first reading. Unsurprisingly, then, the political right - apoplectic about what it considers a “social-communist” regime (due to the presence of Podemos and United Left ministers in the coalition) - resoundingly welcomed the court’s decision. The centre-right parties the Popular Party and Citizens reacted with joy, calling for the “full weight of justice” to fall on Arnaldo Otegi and his co-accused, as if they had not served unjust prison terms already.

The extreme right-wing party Vox also celebrated the decision, describing it as a “triumph of justice”, and repeated their demand that EH Bildu be outlawed. Vox considers both the left and independence movements to be threats to the integrity of the Spanish State - the Secretary-General of Vox even acted as a private prosecutor in the Catalan leaders’ trial. This is a view shared by some elements of the Spanish state, and many of these same forces, who yearn for the “order” of the Franco dictatorship, have been at the forefront of the persecution of both the Basque and Catalan independence movements.

The rapid growth of Vox, and its broadening support in organs of the Spanish state - the police and army in particular - is increasingly disturbing. Recent disclosures about Francoist and anti-democratic forces in the Spanish military suggest that ongoing connections exist between the party and elements of Spain’s armed forces, but the details remain - for now - unclear.

Nonetheless, the political-judicial absurdity decreed by the Spanish Supreme Court on Monday should act as a reminder - like the verdicts against the Catalan pro-independence leaders for organising a peaceful referendum, and the police violence on referendum day - that powerful forces in the Spanish state are not interested in democracy. The Spanish state has repeatedly instigated and sought out violence across the Spanish state to conceal its undemocratic nature and to maintain the status quo.

Until Spain's post-Francoist institutions - still teeming with those who would happily wind back the clock on democracy - are truly reformed, and the right to self-determination is genuinely respected, Spain will remain a failed state, where talk of “democracy” and the “rule of law” should only be used in an aspirational sense. For those living in the shadow of Madrid, the hypocrisy of a European Union critical of Poland and Hungary, but silent on Spain, is daily testimony to the failure of Europe to defend fundamental rights from abuses occurring right under its nose.

[Republished at Brave New Europe here: https://braveneweurope.com/duroyan-fertl-spain-re-opens-controversial-bateragune-case-against-basque-leaders]

New book: "COVID-19 and then what?"

The new book "Covid-19 eta ondoren zer?" (“Covid-19 and then what?”) - containing reflections on the challenges we will face post-COVID, both at the level of the Basque Country and an international level - is now available in bookstores from Elkar Press (in the Basque language). 

It features a short chapter from myself on the EU's failure to adequately respond to the pandemic and its consequences, a failure which has served to deepen the divisions already deep-running through the bloc, along with many other thoughtful and informative contributions. 

While the book is in Euskadi (Basque), for those few of you not able to read the language, these contributions, and many more to come, are available in translation on the Telesforo Monzon eLab website.

Eskerrik asko to TM eLab for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. The debate on the global response to the COVID-19 crisis - and what this means for those of us trying to build a more democratic, socially and environmentally just society - will continue for some time, and it will need to be both broad in terms of input and far ranging and audacious in scope. I am honoured to have contributed to one of several useful and thoughtful starting points on this road.

The Catalan Independence Referendum – Three Years Later

Three years ago, while working in the European Parliament, I travelled from Brussels to Barcelona as part of a large delegation of a parliamentarians, experts, advisors and international observers to witness the October 1, 2017, Catalan Independence Referendum first hand. The experiences of that brief episode are seared on my memory, and the lacklustre international response remains an indelible stain on the European Union’s hypocritical rhetoric of “protecting democracy and the rule of law”.

Read the full article at Brave New Europe.

The Catalan Independence Referendum - three years later

Three years ago, while working in the European Parliament, I traveled from Brussels to Barcelona as part of a large delegation of a parliamentarians, experts, advisors and international observers to witness the October 1, 2017, Catalan Independence Referendum first hand. The experiences of that brief episode are seared on my memory, and the lacklustre international response remains an indelible stain on the European Union’s hypocritical rhetoric of “protecting democracy and the rule of law”.

Lawyers can - and will - debate the legality and constitutionality or otherwise of the referendum itself, and indeed of the acts taken by the Spanish state to prevent it, until they are blue in the face. Nothing Spanish on the ground that day - or those round it - resembled the “defence” of any kind of legality. The muscle of the Spanish state was on open display in ways rarely seen in the years since the end of the Franco dictatorship. The Spanish state - its government, police, courts and paramilitary forces - engaged in a brutal and gratuitous display of force, injuring over one thousand civilians, and treating a whole country like a war zone, and its people as the enemy.

When thousands of Spanish National Police and Guard Civil invaded Catalonia to suppress the vote, many were billeted in a cruise ship in Barcelona harbour, adorned - bizarrely, and to great amusement of the locals - with an enormous image of the cartoon bird Tweety Pie on its side. Catalan twitter went wild with mocking laughter, but while this frivolity never fully evaporated, it was rapidly overshadowed by darker events. The Catalan communications building was occupied and shut down by police, over 140 websites were blocked, newspapers closed down, and events across the Spanish state in support of the vote were banned.

On polling day, in Barcelona and across Catalonia as a whole, the violence was intense and inflicted without mercy - fingers were deliberately broken, women blatantly and violently molested, elderly people pushed down stairs. Schools and other buildings being used as polling centres were smashed to smithereens, pensioners were bashed in the face, computers were stolen, rubber and plastic bullets fired into crowds, with one person losing an eye. I saw grown men in tears, shaking helplessly, at the violence of the Spanish Guardia Civil, a paramilitary shock force deployed against a civilian population who sought only to cast a democratic vote in peace.

At the first polling station I visited in the damp grey of the morning, in Barcelona’s Sant Andreu district, the crowd waiting outside was wary - a large police station lay just around the corner, and word was out that the police were coming. Here, as at the booth outside my apartment, dozens of activists had guarded the local polling centre in the dark and the rain, as police began shutting down booths across Catalonia. Despite their lack of sleep, however, they weren’t about to give up, and every false start led to a surge of people moving to protect the entrance - and their right to vote - from the police. Each time the rumour passed, they returned to an orderly queue.

The website carrying the electoral roll was blocked by the Guardia Civil, delaying voting by an hour, yet the crowd remained. When voting finally did begin, the first in line were the elderly, who had been waiting with us inside. I asked an old lady - 86 years of age and walking with the help of her daughter - if she wasn’t a little concerned about the threat of violence. "I've never seen anything like this since the war”, she said, clearly shaken. While the police violence and terror reminded her of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, she remained crystal clear in her resolve, and straightened her back: “This time we will not let them win!”

The night before the vote, over 100,000 people had gathered in Barcelona in the final rally of the campaign, and the feeling was festive and defiant, if somewhat wary - we all knew that the Madrid government would act, but we weren’t sure how. There were also pro-Spain rallies held across the Spanish state - they were very small in Catalonia, but significantly larger in Madrid - with the mainstream press willfully ignoring the overtly Francoist songs and the fascist salutes, and the Spanish National Police tweeting their full support.

The overnight mobilisations to protect the polling stations had also faced challenges, with some people being shot at with ball bearings. But they also showcased the humour and inventiveness of the Catalans. In the outer Barcelona suburb of Vallvidrera, 400 locals gathered to prevent the closure of their civic centre, the only polling station in the area, by conducting a 24-hour table-tennis tournament. The sound of helicopters came and went overhead, and, even with the rain, it was difficult to sleep.

In this maelstrom of violence and terror, however, I experienced something else, something powerful, firm and dignified. Everywhere I went on polling day, I was awestruck at the strength and dignity of the thousands who were coming out to vote, even in the knowledge that police violence was all but inevitable. Despite the violence - or perhaps because of it, and the shock it inevitably brings - their resolve had been hardened into something beautiful. “The streets will always be ours!”, they chanted, young and old. “We will vote!” Triumphant, insistent, restrained yet determined.

In the heart of Barcelona, in the heart of #Catalunya, the people will vote!!!! #votarem #referendumCAT #catalanreferendum #DiemSí #1O #1Oct pic.twitter.com/CVcsDqzIN0

— Duroyan Fertl (@dfertl) October 1, 2017

The people responded to the presence of international observers and guests with an overwhelming outpouring of love, gratitude and passion, that often left us lost for words as we traversed the wet streets. As polling booths were closed down, one by one, people gathered around those still open, determined to keep the police (uniformed and undercover) away and let voters in until closing time. As I stood inside the last booth in Barcelona to close, observing the counting finally get underway, the crowds stayed outside singing and chanting, their slogan changed now to “we have voted!” Firm. Clear. Defiant. As was the result.

In the days, weeks, months, and now years that have followed, more details have been revealed about the tenacity of those organising the referendum, including the daring networks of activists who smuggled the ballot boxes and papers into the country and distributed them in the early hours of the morning. The mask of democracy slipped from the face of the Spanish state that day too, and in the suspension of Catalan democracy that followed, revealing to the world what many already knew - that Franco’s ghost still lives on in the very marrow of the country called “Spain”.

In the face of such violence, such breaches of democratic and civic norms, many expected the European Union to act swiftly. Surely there must be consequences. If these crimes were to happen outside the EU - as indeed they do - they would be, rightly, condemned. But where the EU has puffed up its chest in indignation about the likes of Belarus or Poland, on Catalonia it has remained steadfastly silent.

Worse, the cosy consensus has deepened. In the years since the referendum, while the EU has accepted the presence of the exiled Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín in the European Parliament, it has also gifted the coveted position of EU High Commissioner on Foreign Affairs to one of the leading - if sometimes bizarrely incoherent - opponents of Catalan independence, Josep Borell, and Spain’s influence in Brussels remains firmer than it has been for years.

The leaders of the “European project” wring their hands ostentatiously about using Article 7 of the EU Treaty to address the very real threats to the rule of law and democracy in Poland and Hungary, yet Spain remains - in its own, repeated, insistent, and often far too shrill, words - a “model democracy”. This, while civil society leaders and politicians remain imprisoned on ridiculous charges for outrageously long jail terms, and others live in exile in Scotland, Switzerland and Belgium.

It must be admitted that the role of the Catalan pro-independence parties has not been perfect either. The revelation that Puigdemont and others genuinely thought they could force the Spanish government to the negotiating table was somewhat astounding, while the greatest weakness of the Catalan movement remains the lack of a clear, unified, strategy for success. As time passes, too, political differences between parties of the left and right, and between former colleagues, also cause frictions that only Spanish oppression can smooth over.

Fortunately, the arrogance of the Spanish state springs eternal, and it continues to attack the Catalan government like a wounded bull. The Spanish Supreme Court’s recent ruling - effectively removing Quim Torra as president of Catalonia for hanging a banner in support of the political prisoners and exiles - is only the latest act of self-harm by the Spanish unionists, and we can be certain it is not the last. Short of a disaster, the upcoming elections should provide a further democratic mandate to the independence movement.

Both within the Spanish state, and more widely, however, the left also suffers a partial blindness on the Catalan issue. Many have reduced it to a question of “mere” nationalism, that distracts from vital social and class struggles that extend beyond Catalonia - and indeed beyond the Spanish state. The leading role in the Catalan struggle played by some liberal and clearly pro-capitalist forces, not all of them with the cleanest or most progressive track records, is used to further justify a position of abstention on the issue - if not downright opposition.

Yet this is to ignore the nature of a national democratic revolution, the progressive origins of the revival in support for Catalan independence, and the implications that its denial have had on the political dynamic. The tension that has built up around the Catalan issue over the past decade - and the past three years especially - now constitutes a serious threat to the Spanish state, with its inbuilt systemic corruption, Francoist skeletons and shallow democratic veneer. It ought to be clear by now that the transition from the dictatorship was never truly completed, and the same old forces still rule in the courts and the corridors of power. To break their stranglehold over even one part of the state would be a great victory indeed.

This is not to say there are no dangers, nor that they should be ignored. The right wing recognises the threat Catalan independence poses, and the recent rise of Vox cannot be entirely separated from the failure of the Spanish left to harness the democratic fervour of the Catalan process for deeper political change in the Spanish state. For this the Spanish left can not be entirely blamed - the creation of popular animosity to Catalan independence across the Spanish state by the media and government alike has poisoned the chalice badly - but they haven't tried too hard either.

Yet the Catalan reality refuses to just go away, posing parts of the left a particular challenge - one that it has failed so far to come to terms with. After joining the centre-left PSOE in government, the radical left Unidas Podemos - which already held ambiguous views on the referendum - has become a defender of the unity of the Spanish state, largely ignoring this key battle for democracy within its borders. Such a position is difficult to maintain in the long run for a party of the left.

This contradiction will need to be resolved, or it will resolve itself - and not necessarily as we might wish it. While political parties in Barcelona and Madrid engage in political games, support for independence continues to grow, and cannot be denied for long. But the shadow of the right is growing as well, and across Europe and the world, a battle looms for the defence of democracy. If those that call themselves left do not side with democracy, others will seek to steal their clothes.

The Munich Oktoberfest Bombing, 40 years on.

Forty years ago today - on September 26, 1980 - neo-Nazis detonated a nail bomb in a bin at the entrance to the Munich Oktoberfest, killing twelve people and injuring 221 more, many of them seriously. It remains - alongside the 1972 Munich Olympics attack - the deadliest terror attack in modern German history, and is the most deadly by the far-right since 1945. Yet the investigation by the Bavarian State Criminal Police remains one of the most serious failures by German investigative authorities.

The man still officially considered to be the sole perpetrator, Gundolf Köhler, was killed in the blast. He was known to be involved in neo-fascist circles, including the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (“Hoffmann Military Sports Group”) - a neo-Nazi militia organisation which was banned in Germany the same year. He also had a portrait of Hitler hanging over his bed. Germany had seen numerous far-right attacks in the preceding years, and in 1980 itself.

Nonetheless, Bavarian police quickly concluded that the attack was not politically motivated, and closed their investigations in 1982. They also concluded that Köhler had acted alone, despite convincing indications of others being involved in the attack. This included several witnesses testifying to having seen Köhler arguing with two men in German army parkas shortly before the explosion. Confessions by two imprisoned fascist activists about military training and weapons dumps in the forest were not followed up either.

Fortunately, demands to re-open the investigation continued. In 2009, inquiries by the Greens revealed that the domestic intelligence agencies in three German states (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse) had been closely monitoring the neo-Nazi militia Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann only hours before the bombing. In 2010, a request from the victims' lawyers for access to the DNA evidence revealed that all of the evidence had been destroyed in 1997 - much of it never having been fully tested - including a severed hand that was never identified.

In 2011, Der Spiegel magazine reported on some 46,000 pages of previously unpublished investigation files, which revealed that authorities were already aware of Köhler at the time of the attack, and considered him to be “firmly rooted in a milieu of militant neo-Nazis” which also “maintained intensive contacts with CSU functionaries”. (The CSU - Christian Social Union - is the Bavarian sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and has governed Bavaria every year bar three since 1946).

Der Spiegel reported that the files also showed Köhler was motivated by a desire to help the conservative CSU’s candidate for Chancellor, Franz Josef Strauss, win the October 1980 federal elections by carrying out a false-flag attack that could be blamed on the left. Köhler was unsuccessful, both in laying the blame on the left, and in electing Strauss. Although the CDU/CSU remained the largest party in the German Bundestag, the social democrat Helmut Schmidt remained Chancellor.

Following years of campaigning by relatives, victim representatives, lawyers, trade unions, journalists and politicians, the investigation was finally re-opened in 2014. The German government and intelligence services continued to be difficult and obstructionist. They refused to admit that there were intelligence informants in the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (a fact later established), leading Die Linke and the Greens to lodge a complaint with the German Constitutional Court.

In April 2016, in response to enquiries by the Die Linke MP Martina Renner, the Federal Government also revealed that only the Federal Intelligence Service The “Bundesnachrichtendienst”) had handed over its files on the case, while the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (“Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution” - BfV) had not done so - despite holding the majority of the relevant material.

The investigation was closed again in July this year, but not before it was determined that Köhler had been, in fact, motivated by far-right extremism and a desire to build “a Führer-state based on the model of National Socialism”. It was also found that while there “were not sufficient indications” to show that others were involved in the bombing, such a scenario “cannot be ruled out.”

Forty years after this terrible atrocity, the victims are only just now receiving proper compensation - and this only after years of campaigning. Meanwhile, the German state is reeling from revelations of extensive far-right activities in the army, police and intelligence services, death threats against politicians, and a rising rate of neo-fascist violence and killings across the country.

Unfortunately, the Oktoberfest bombing - including its botched investigation - looks less like an exception, and more like one example among many more of neo-Nazi violence tolerated and covered-up by elements of the state apparatus. This was neither the first nor the last time that German authorities obstructed and obscured investigations into right-wing terrorist attacks. At best, the investigation was an incompetent farce - more likely, there was deliberate obstruction and obfuscation, as there was in the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terror case.

The bitter reality today is that the danger of right-wing terror is an immediate threat once again, but the German state services remain unreformed, and are demonstratively compromised. The fight for democracy remains a battle of remembering against forgetting, and it is vital that decades of wilful ignorance - and worse - by German authorities of the continuing Nazi threat is exposed and undone.

Kill-lists and commandos: Germany still has a Nazi problem

SOON after the government announced dramatic steps to combat far-right extremism in the military, it emerged that a new wave of neonazi death threats have been sent to left-wing politicians and public figures. After turning a blind eye to the neo-fascist threat for years, authorities are now finding its tentacles spread throughout Germany’s security apparatus and society.

Read the full article in 2 parts at MORNING STAR here and here.