It is more difficult to comprehend why the opposition parties have been dubbed ‘fascist’ or ‘Francoist’ because of their concern for rules based politics. The image of General Franco is still potent in Spain – the dictator only died in 1975 – and the memory of his totalitarian regime is still very much alive. Separatists use the term to close down inconvenient arguments and silence critics. There is no need for any further debate if your opponent is a Francoist, right? But it is also echoed by foreign commentators whose knowledge of Catalan politics seems to be based on reading George Orwell’s Spanish civil war novel Homage to Catalonia and occasional trips to Barcelona. Orwell, himself a rigorously clear thinker, would have been appalled by some of the arguments in today’s debate in the Catalan parliament and the vote for secession.