Catalan Left Fights Among Themselves over Housing Issue

The fact that the real estate problem is the new lifeline for the Catalan left had an unexpected effect. This is none other than the left battling among themselves to see who capitalizes more and better on the issue. As explained in E-Notícies, the situation can be summarized into two sectors: one closer to CUP, with the Socialist Housing Union, and another closer to Comuns, with the Tenants' Union.

Now, the spokesperson for the Socialist Union, Marina Parés, has criticized Comuns and also CUP in an article published in Crític. In Parés's opinion, the logic that unions must mobilize the streets for parties to capitalize on them is "exhausted." In fact, Parés goes so far as to say that the "political spaces" of CUP and Comuns are already "irremediably exhausted."

In this regard, she doesn't hold back on very harsh criticisms against the two parties. Against CUP, for example, she says that their new reformist strategy can't hide the fact that they are a crutch for PSC "the most right-wing and Spanish nationalist in history." Moreover, Parés considers CUP's new political project "sterile," besides the fact that "nobody has asked them to assume this role[as a transmission belt for the streets]."

Regarding Comuns, she denounces that their reformist strategy is equally useless, although their gestures and rhetoric, however, are "softer." Parés throws a very poisoned dart at Comuns, when they say they might regulate housing as they "celebrate the America's Cup". They are managers of the "capitalist institutions," she concludes.

Solution? A Revolution

However, these criticisms are not an obstacle for Parés to make the classic maximalist amendment of the left, completely outside the logic of parties. In this case, Parés says that the only way out is a "revolutionary alternative." Ultimately, this means divorcing the housing problem from parliamentarism and, on the horizon, organizing a rent strike.

Parés's stance, in short, would be that of the more radical sectors of CUP, who do not look favorably on the strategic shift of the formation. The Socialist Union calls to "delegitimize the capitalist society model" and to constitute a "massive social force." Beyond the radical nature of this stance - the same that led CUP to flirt with its extinction -, the relevant aspect of the case is that it confirms that the real estate problem is bursting the seams of Catalan politics.