“All you have to do is say Madrid instead of Westminster.” That was Catalan president Quim Torra’s response after British prime minister Boris Johnson announced that he would not authorize an independence referendum in Scotland.

Torra is right, in a sense. While the governments in Spain and the UK are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, following the creation of the PSOE-Podemos coalition in Madrid, they have the same position toward their respective peripheral nations — namely, that there is to be no independence referendum.

That is despite the significant democratic mandates for self-determination recently won in both countries. In November’s Spanish general election, Catalonia’s pro-independence parties elected an all-time high twenty-three MPs — just short of 50 percent of all Catalan seats. Add in the left-wing En Comú Podem, which supports the right to decide, and both a majority in the Catalan Parliament and most Catalan members of the Spanish Congress back an independence referendum.