To many it may seem like déjà vu, but the fact is that today the triple right, that is, PP, Cs and Vox, are once again demonstrating together in Plaza Colón in Madrid, as they did on 10 February, 2019 to protest against the talks between the Spanish and Catalan governments. Two and a half years later the same protagonists (with some change because Albert Rivera is no longer there and Inés Arrimadas missed the plane and did not attend then) meet again in the same place to protest against the granting of pardons to Catalan political prisoners that the Spanish government is preparing. And this is because during all this time both the PP and Cs have tried to distance themselves from the extreme right, but at the moment of truth the Catalan issue brings them together again and puts them on the same stage.
The first reflection that the image that will be seen today raises is that both Pablo Casado and Inés Arrimadas have failed in the attempt to dissociate themselves from Vox. And not only this, but they have also ended up adopting their discourse on issues as important as the Catalan lawsuit. Casado, in fact, has starred in a thousand and one nooks and crannies since he became president of the PP in relation to Vox. From whitewashing them to qualify them as extreme right, to whitewashing them again (by the need to agree in autonomous communities and municipalities) and break in a theatrical way in Parliament during the vote of no confidence presented by Santiago Abascal. But now he needs them again in Madrid, where they have already agreed on the composition of the Parliamentary table, and they coincide in the campaign against pardons.
The same can be said of Inés Arrimadas, who during the state of alarm acted as a faithful partner of Pedro Sánchez in a movement that sought to focus the party and distance it from the right, and who is now making the same mistake as her predecessor, Albert Rivera. The failure of the demonstration called on Friday in front of the Delegation of the Spanish government in Barcelona, added to the electoral defeat of the 14 February elections, is the proof that the Catalan society that is not in favour of independence does not bet either for rancor or revenge, but to rebuild bridges and activate dialogue. Today's demonstration will show that Catalan public opinion is increasingly distant from Spanish public opinion, and that the Catalan citizens who supposedly want to be saved from the claws of independence do not really want to be saved by anyone. Because they know that what interests these parties above all is fishing for votes outside Catalonia, because here they are marginal.
However, the most worrying thing of all is the lack of project that these parties have for Catalonia. Leaving aside Vox, PP and Cs ran in the last elections under the banner of concord. Well, how does it benefit concord that political prisoners continue to be locked up while more than half of the voters support their thesis? Do they really believe that extending their stay in prison will somehow improve coexistence in Catalonia? Is this how they think dialogue can be resumed? Or is it not because, in reality, coexistence among Catalans and the resolution of the political conflict have never mattered to them in the slightest?
