The Government of Spain has made it clear that the consultation of 9 November is illegal and will not be authorized by the Executive. Catalan sovereigns have kept their wager to date and now is the time to put their arrival on fire. The question is a symbol: Will the CDC keep the challenge of conducting the consultation when the Spanish authorities prohibit it?

The point of view of arrogance is clear: the agreement for the consultation of 9 November was agreed and that is what needs to be done. It's over. From now on, the hypothesis is what it is, because even if they are not publicly expressed, they all have different variants of Plan B. If the consultation is not held, the independentists will have to agree what they will bring to the table. On the contrary, the Government of Spain will have to think about what to do or what to do to prevent the referendum and how to respond if the Yes-Yes presenta.Entre they, the consultation should be stitched the last legal passages.

Non-binding Popular Consultation Act

The Statute of Catalonia does not have legal powers to convene binding referendums, but rather non-binding consultations; and in this competence the Catalan Parliament has based itself on the drafting of the law of non-binding popular consultations. Last week, the Statute Assurance Council passed the law with five votes in favour and four against the nine members of the Lower House. Four of the members named by the PSC, ICV and pp refused to accept the agreement, and not all for the same reasons. The Council has not analysed the case of 9 November, but has made it clear that non-binding consultations can be held on this matter.

According to the timetable, once the Council of Guarantees has been passed, the Catalan Parliament is expected to adopt the Law on 19 September, at the end of the annual general debate. In the coming days, the Generalitat will officially convene the consultation on 9 November.

Subject of the legal debate

If the political objective is not legal, this must be built, and that is what the supporters of the consultation have done. What to do? What not? Among other issues, reference has been made to the resolution that the Constitutional Court published in 2008, which annulled the popular consultation in the Basque Parliament.

Then, the Constitutional Court argued, essentially, that the consultation of lehendakari Ibarretxe is not the most important thing, that the consultation is not binding, that the referendums can also be non-binding, and because of their characteristics, this is a referendum (for example, by using the Electoral Statute of the CAV); two, that the Basque Parliament does not have the power of referendum, Four, the consultation affects the constitutional principle, that is, the unity of the Spanish Nation and, therefore, there is no Basque subject who can decide for himself about the rupture of that unity.

It therefore does not seem easy for the non-binding nature of the Catalan consultation to exceed the opinion of the Constitutional Court on the text. However, the current law contains some loopholes for consultation to strengthen its non-binding character. On the one hand, it will not use the electoral roll, gives the right to vote to those over the age of 16 and gives the right to vote to foreigners who have spent some time in Catalonia and to Catalans residing abroad. You will see how Spain has changed since 2008, but it does not seem that all this serves to override the opinion of the Constitutional Court, because its arguments, at the end of the day, are more political than legal and because the main powers of Spain have made it clear that Catalonia cannot make such a consultation. The PSC and pp use the same arguments as the Constitutional in the consultation of Ibarretxe and their representatives have also done the same in the Council of Guarantees. The representatives of the CSP have pointed out that the issue is about independence, that this affects the whole of Spain and that, therefore, the authorisation of the Government of Madrid is essential. The PP representative was simpler: if independence is impossible, how is it legal to ask about it? For both sides, this consultation is a camouflaged referendum.

Plan B

Now you don't want to talk about that, but if you ban consultation, the sovereign movement will have to decide what to do. ERC and the Cup are clear that, over and above the ban, a consultation is required in Parlament. The forces around the Constituent Process also take a similar view and the new Barcelona-Ganemos Dezagun movement, led by Ada Colau, is also based in Barcelona. The ICV is very fragmented on this issue, but it says that a consultation is needed for today, without clarifying what it would do in the face of the ban.

And the main question is that of CDC, which, after being overcome by ERC in the European elections, has been caught up in the biggest spiral by the Jordi Pujol affair. It is divided into two parts – those who believe that it will overtake the ban and those who uphold respect for legality – and there are many doubts about the attitude that will eventually be adopted. According to the Madrid media, lehendakari, Artur Mas, has already announced that it will not conduct illegal consultations.

Early elections

"It will be voted, it will be voted," say Mas' supporters, if not in the consultation in the advanced autonomic elections. That would perhaps be CDC's favourite dish, that the consultation should not take place and that Spain should extend its ban, that Parliament should be dissolved and that the elections should be brought forward, by presenting a joint list with ERC. But it seems difficult for Esquerra to accept it without very clear conditions and most importantly for the electoral programme to make it clear that if the results allow the Catalan Parliament independence will be declared. Would you dare to accept a CDC? The evil, but it is possible; but from now on, everything will be a bad thing for the independentists. The biggest danger for CDC today is that, if sovereign society is not determined to be independent, it will jump above it and stay out of the centers of power.

Let nothing happen in A-9

There are more hypotheses, harder and softer, but as ANC President Carme Forcadell recently pointed out, sooner or later “Spanish legality will have to be broken because Spain will not allow independence”. The sovereign movement now has two main objectives: one to maintain unity; the other to demonstrate that all its steps towards internationalization are fully democratic and socially dominant. It is essential to show that it is Spain that is undemocratically violating the will of the Catalan people.

The risks are numerous and it is not the least that former ERC President Josep-Lluis Carod-Rovira highlighted in a Digital Born opinion article at the end of July: “The worst thing that can happen to us is that 9 November nothing will happen, because that will bring a lot of disappointment and confusion and, in fact, it would be a way to start losing. We want to vote and win on 9 November. We will vote and win. Ours can only end in two ways: either very well, or very badly. We all have to get it done very well.”