Like Icarus, who burned his wings trying to reach the sun, the Catalan independence movement could have burned its electoral expectations – at least for a time – after the failure of the secessionist process that it promoted between 2012 and 2017. And although the achievements associated with A possible pact for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez could shorten his journey through the desert, the cases of Quebec, in Canada, and Scotland, in Great Britain, reveal the extraordinary fatigue that sovereign processes leave in the affected societies, which, in addition, condemn its promoters to a decline of uncertain trajectory.
The case of Quebec clearly reflects the self-destruction of the independence movement after brushing the tip of its fingers against the barrier of 50% of the votes in the 1995 referendum. That query, posed on an extensive and convoluted question (made up of 37 words between those that did not include the term “independence”), gathered a participation of over 93% of those registered and gave an advantage of 54,000 votes to those opposed to secession out of a total of more than four and a half million voters. But what this result reflected was the irresolvable division of Quebec society over an existential dilemma that requires “a clear majority.”
The following elections, held in 1998, marked the beginning of the end of the independence movement. The PQ continued in government for one more term thanks to the majority electoral system, but it was already behind the Liberal Party in votes. From then on, participation fell below 60% (compared to 81% in 1994) and the PQ only regained power on one occasion (11 years ago), although without a majority, so the legislature barely lasted. 20 months. In the last two decades, the government of the province has been held by the federalist liberals and, since 2018, by the autonomist nationalists of the Coalition Avenir Québec (populist conservative).
The history of Scotland is somewhat different, since in the 2014 referendum the rejection of independence was imposed with great clarity (by a margin of almost 11 points). However, the political evolution of that territory registers similar constants. The first, the political fatigue of Scottish society following the result of a consultation that was presented as a mechanism to resolve the relationship with Great Britain, at least for a generation.
Only Brexit, the departure of Great Britain from the EU in a kind of supra-state process, reactivated the secessionist debate in Scotland, although without sufficient force to impose another referendum. The second constant of the Scottish process has been the electoral decline of the independentists. In fact, after the referendum, they never again repeated their 2011 ceiling (44% of the votes). And the polls today place the SNP below 30% of the votes.
The similarities with the Catalan case are evident, although a legal consultation was not held in Catalonia. But the 2015 elections and, to a lesser extent, those of 2017, after the suspension of autonomy, operated as substitutes for a virtual referendum. And although the result in seats could mask the failure of the Catalan independence movement, the votes always showed a correlation contrary to the rupture, halfway between Quebec and Scotland: less than 48% for those in favor of secession, and almost 51% for his detractors.
Then, in Catalonia things have followed a course similar to that of those territories, although in the Catalan case the punitive action of justice has contributed to maintaining a certain rhetorical radicalization. But in Catalonia, confusion and fatigue have also affected the independence movement. Proof of this wear and tear are the 600,000 votes that the secessionist formations have lost between the Catalan elections of 2017 and those of 2021 (and the almost 700,000 between the general elections of 2019 and 2023).
At the same time, the confusion has accentuated the division within the independence movement between those who intend to continue offering the same single-dish menu to a society that has already demonstrated its lack of secessionist appetite at the polls, and those who lean towards a pragmatism that includes objectives more modest, but useful and tangible, so as not to lose electoral support. In any case, the drop in participation (almost 28 points between 2017 and 2021) confirms the fatigue left by the Catalan process. And at the same time, surveys confirm the loss of support for independence, especially among the new generations.
One of the lessons of Quebec, in the words of a Canadian federalist, is that the best therapy for stateless nations with 50/50 societies is to have nationalist governments that never declare independence. In short, pedaling so that the bicycle remains upright but without falling off the cliff trying to reach an impossible destination.
