After Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump's election in the US, the political elites of the world are slowly waking up to the inevitability that the will of the people can not be ignored forever. In Northern Europe, the electorate has rebelled against political elites, like Angela Merkel, who have embraced "open borders" and the influx of refugees from war-torn areas in the mid-east that have brought with them increasing violence and terror attacks. In the U.S., the rebellion is the direct result of Americans being fed up with a federal government that is defined by cronyism and complete dysfunction.
Now, the latest demonstration of an electorate fighting back against its elected officials comes from Spain as 80,000 people rallied in Barcelona on Sunday in a show of support for Catalan leaders locked in a political battle with Madrid over an independence referendum. In Catalonia, separatists complain their relatively wealthy region is overtaxed by an oppressive central government in Madrid to subsidize poorer regions of the country.
While separatists site a November 2014 "mock referendum" in which 90% of Catalans supported secession, other polls suggest the population is roughly split on the idea. Meanwhile, Spain's central government has consistently held that individual regions do not have the constitutional authority to hold their own referendum votes that concern the "integrity of the country." Per the Associated Press:
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