Catalonia’s ‘Salmond ‘offers hope to his Scottish counterpart

Published on 10/09/2012 01:36

THE man dubbed “Catalonia’s Alex Salmond” has claimed that a pro-independence movement does not need to start off with a majority of the population if it has skilled leaders.

Jordi Pujol, the former president of Catalonia, was in London to help mark Catalan national day ahead of a major pro-independence demonstration in Barcelona tomorrow.

He offered hope for the Yes Scotland campaign by saying successful movements towards independence usually start from a minority. He pointed out that the USA won the war of independence with only a third of population supporting the movement at the start.

He said: “This process towards independence is always difficult to see what would happen exactly. At the beginning of a national movement, the national movement is a movement of a minority then independence; sometimes it is a minority and it remains a minority. In other cases, the position is the contrary one. The movement is increasing not always in the same way and with the same impetus, but it is a long process. The national movement is never the movement of all the population, even the ones which had the great success.”

He added that the success of independence was “not only the will of the population, but also the skill of the leaders”.