Plan to crush catalan separatists causes alarm for Rajoy’s allies

Bloomberg

Spain’s plan to crush Catalonia’s separatists is ringing alarm bells among some of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s allies before what’s set to be a decisive few days in the conflict with the insurgent region.
The Socialists are balking at the government’s focus on taking control of the administration in Barcelona while shutting off options that would allow the Catalan leadership a dignified retreat, according to two people with knowledge of their discussions.
The biggest opposition party in the Spanish Parliament, they have backed Rajoy and his minority government so far, but the party’s top brass voiced concerns in a meeting Tuesday that the conflict will escalate unnecessarily if the Catalans are given no room to maneuver, one of the people said.
They asked not to be identified by name when discussing internal matters. The tension adds another layer of intrigue to Spain’s most dramatic political crisis for almost four decades. The legislature in Barcelona will convene at 10 am on Thursday and the separatists will decide whether to go all-out and declare independence. A Senate vote a day later likely will grant Rajoy the authority he’s seeking for his crackdown. “It seems unlikely that the Catalan government will backtrack, at least under the conditions set by the government, because the grassroots would kill them,” said Jose Ramon Caso, a lawmaker in the 1980s for a now-defunct party and adviser to a former prime minister.