EIGHT years since the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and five years since the Catalan 2017 referendum, how similar is the Catalan independence movement to the Scottish one? A good person to shed some light on this is William Thomson, who co-produces the Scotonomics podcast, which advocates alternative economics for an independent Scotland.
Thomson is from Scotland, but he has lived in Barcelona since 2016. He was there in George Square on the eve of the 2014 indyref, and he was helping to defend the ballot boxes at his local polling station in the Catalan ‘1-O’ referendum. Thomson’s memory of the two votes is very different.
“I remember sitting in George Square and being surrounded by flags and there being a carnival atmosphere. Being in the Yes camp, we might not have felt like we were going to win, but we weren’t scared. And that’s the difference with 2017,” he told The National.
