Imprisonment of Catalan Leaders

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. I think the Spanish Government and Spanish parliamentarians of all stripes and colours will be exceptionally mindful of history. If anybody has read Antony Beevor’s “The Battle for Spain” about the terrible events that took place in Spain between 1936 and 1939, they will understand what can happen when disagreements get out of hand. I am sure that the Spanish Government, the Spanish Opposition and many people in Spain are very mindful of that.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

When the Minister is at the Dispatch Box, he and I will discuss Ukraine fairly often, and we will more often than not find ourselves in agreement, because we have chosen that what happens there is in our interests. If what is happening in Spain and Catalonia now was what Yanukovych’s Government had been doing to people in Ukraine back in 2014, the Minister would rightly be condemning it, and I would rightly be saying he was right to do so. Why does he not recognise his unique position as a Minister in a Unionist Government who oversaw an independence referendum that was held legally and fairly, and inject some common sense into his Spanish counterparts?

[Christopher Pincher]

Self-determination, as set out in international law, is a long-standing convention to which we subscribe, but the circumstances in individual states are often very different. He will know that the situation in Ukraine in 2013-14 was very different from the one in which the people of Spain and Catalonia find themselves today. We should treat individual circumstances individually, and that is what we are doing.