Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
This crisis is a reminder of Europe's instability
The turn to authoritarian methods is a response to popular democratic feeling for radical change from the failed neoliberal model across Europe, writes KEVIN OVENDEN

PARAMILITARY riot police deployed by the central state. Rubber-coated bullets and percussion grenades. Over 900 injured. Blood-splattered elderly women. Ballot boxes seized and polling places stormed.

The Catalonian independence referendum last Sunday is a watershed in Europe.

The repression ordered by right-wing Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy immediately summoned up memories of the brutality of the years of the Francisco Franco dictatorship, which ended following his death in 1975 and a transition to parliamentary democracy.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Green Party Deputy Leader Zack Polanski AM speaking at the People's Assembly Against Austerity protest in central London. Picture date: Saturday June 7, 2025
Politics / 24 July 2025
24 July 2025

A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking during a press conference on the Immigration White Paper in the Downing Street Briefing Room in London
Features / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

As Starmer flies to Albania seeking deportation camps while praising Giorgia Meloni, KEVIN OVENDEN warns that without massive campaigns rejecting this new overt government xenophobia, Britain faces a soaring hard right and emboldened fascist thugs on the streets

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP proposing the assisted dying B
Features / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
The shameful passage of the assisted dying Bill where safeguards have been all but jettisoned is symptomatic of a hyper-liberalised society where the cult of individualism reigns supreme, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to soldiers at
Features / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
Similar stories
A ballot box arriving during the count for the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre, Blackpool, May 2, 2024
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

In the run-up to the Communist Party congress in November ROB GRIFFITHS outlines a few ideas regarding its participation in the elections of May 2026

Ralah Mohamed Salim
Northwest Africa / 14 July 2025
14 July 2025

We must remember Morocco’s land grab of the Sahrawi people’s territory continues with French and British support, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG, looking into the origins of the annexation

BY POPULAR DEMAND: Michel Barnier leaves
Features / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN