For Catalans, as with many Scots, the wish for independence is about rejecting the dominant, central government and its conservative, free-market policies

merely a change in seats for Catalan political parties. Due to the

intransigence of the Spanish state, this vote has been given the

status of a proxy for a referendum on Catalan independence. Indeed,

Catalan nationalist leaders have said in recent weeks that a victory

for them would launch a "road map" to Catalan independence within 18

months.

I will be there, as an election observer at the invitation of the

Catalan government. That said, I certainly won't be neutral. I am firmly

supporting Catalan democracy. Catalunya is a nation, and has a right

to choose, and absolutely nobody should stand in the way of a

democratic expression of will.

My Catalan colleagues watched our own experience of an independence

referendum one year ago with a great deal of envy and frustration. The

cooperation between the UK government and the Scottish government –

the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement, the explicit agreement to

respect the result of that vote no matter what the outcome - was a

good news story for democracy and an example the State of Spain would do well to follow.

Instead, what should be an energising debate

about Catalunya's place in the world has instead become a divisive and

frustrated binary argument. In the absence of a democratic process,

the result can only be festering frustration, and I think there is a

real risk of that frustration spilling over.

This point absolutely underlines a key difference between Scotland and

Catalunya. Whereas nobody anywhere in Scottish or UK politics

seriously thought that we did not have the right to make the decision,

regardless of their views on yes or no, in Madrid especially the unity

of Spain is a matter of theology. This attitude is going to need

something of a speedy reformation if Spanish politicians are going to

continue to claim to be democrats.

The alternative is being seen as deliberately ignoring a democratic,

peaceful decision of the Catalan people in order to keep Catalan taxes

flowing to the central Spanish coffers. As Spain's wealthiest and most

economically productive region, accounting for about a quarter of

Spain's tax revenue, Spain needs Catalunya

on the books. Indeed, take Catalunya out of Spain's numbers and Spain

is back in the economic danger zone just as it looks like they're coming out of

it.

For Catalans, as with many Scots, the wish for independence is not

just down to questions of identity, language and history, but there is

also an underlying rejection of the dominant, central government. Many

Catalans do not see the conservative, free-market orientation of the

Spanish government as compatible with their own political preferences

and understandably believe that they could manage their own economy

more effectively independently rather than through the current

centralised system. This is certainly a sentiment many in our own

country would sympathise with.

As we saw in our own referendum too, the EU has not exactly been forthcoming on

the question of independence and EU membership, and I fully expect that

this chilly neutrality will continue. However, the EU is pragmatic and

when the votes are counted, from a Brussels perspective a Catalan

passport looks very much like a Spanish one. The issues, though, from

a Brussels perspective, are way more complicated than they were in

Scotland's case - the Eurozone has zero - nada - rules on how to deal

with such an eventuality and the markets will be watching.

However, Catalunya is a nation, and has a right to choose. That is

absolutely clear. And the EU is pragmatic enough and flexible enough

to adapt – as it did with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the

reunification of Germany, the exit of Greenland, and on many other

occasions - and because the alternative is simply anti-democratic,

anti-European, and potentially explosive.