Spain PM hits out at Catalan independence movement, Brexit for ‘lying’
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has dropped his conciliatory tone on Catalonia's separatists, likening the Catalan independence movement to the Brexit campaign, which he said is based on “lies” and “manipulation.”
Sanchez said in parliament on Wednesday that both movements were built on "a tale of invented grievances, magnified by manipulation."
"It is necessary to remember that Brexit was based on a grotesque campaign of lies and unprecedented misinformation," he told lawmakers.
Sanchez added that Catalan separatists "only have lies to back their political positions."
"With Brexit we face a movement which goes against history and also against reason... Brexit and the Catalan separatist movement advance on parallel paths and with similar rhetoric."
"You are forced to choose between being European or British, or between being Spanish or Catalan, when we have lived with these identities and many others for decades."
British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a no-confidence vote launched by lawmakers over her controversial European Union divorce deal. She took office a month after Britons voted in June 2016 to withdraw from the EU.
Sanchez came to power in June after his party managed to force through a no-confidence motion against the previous conservative government of Mariano Rajoy with the support of Catalan separatist parties.
He initially decided to take a softer stance towards Catalonia's separatists, but in recent days has shifted his approach.
Spain’s central government on Monday threatened to take control of security in Catalonia after the highway that runs across the region was blocked by the separatists for more than 15 hours on Saturday without any intervention on the part of the regional authorities.
Analysts say Sanchez’s change in tone comes after his Socialist party suffered heavy losses earlier this month in regional elections in Andalusia, while the conservative parties, who adopted a hard line against Catalan separatists, made gains in the southern Socialist stronghold.
The premier is widely expected to call an early general election in 2019.
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