A couple of points Jon (as long as whereangelsplay doesn't mind me posting again in the thread I took the time to create) as it's a subject that interests me a lot. I'm by no means an expert on it and my mind isn't closed to contrary opinions.
Firstly, it always seems to go back a long way. The siege of Barcelona in 1714 surely doesn't have much relevance today? Spain is obviously an extremely different place to what it was 300 years ago. Surely an attempt to gain independence in the year 2017 should have more substance than things that happened so long ago?
On the Civil War, of course there are still open wounds there and as you've rightly pointed out there are many people in Spain who lived to see the repression under Franco. But then as articles like this one https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/30/red-belt-catalonia-labour-movement-referendum point out, there is also a lot of distrust from those around at that time of the current Independence movement.
While Rajoy is obviously a total twat and plays into the hands of those wanting independence, he only scraped into power after a second election and that was just at the expense of various left wing and socialist parties. Spain has had many years of Socialist/left wing parties since the transformation to democracy. Unlike most of Europe, Spain hasn't seen any growing far right parties. The far right movements seem to be in the form of this nationalism coming from both sides. It suits the romantic independence argument to suggest that Spain is a right wing country that still hangs on to the ghosts of Franco, while Catalunya is the socialist paradise yearning to be free but it just isn't true. Puigdemont is a Conservative after all. So while I agree that the left should be aggrieved at the fact that so many of the memorials from the war are to those on the right, the left in this case isn't necessarily Barcelona/Catalunya and the right Madrid/the rest of Spain.
Spain is still predominantly socialist at heart, it was before Franco and it has been after. For example, since the new constitution, here in Andalucia there has always been a Socialist government and prior to Franco it was a hot bed for Socialist, Communist and Anarchist workers/peasant groups.
The issue is that the PP were essentially founded from the remnants of the the Franco government and they will always carry that with them. To coin a phrase, not everyone who votes for them is a Francoist but every Francoist votes for them.
Where I live in the north of the Granada province, there are many people with links to Catalonia - through displacement due to work or through the many Andalucians who went there to fight (or were imprisoned there) during the war. For them, there is a feeling of betrayal that when Catalonia was at its lowest point, they stood shoulder to shoulder with them but now the region is doing well, they want to turn their backs on Spain at a time when stability is desparately needed.
The general consensus here (and I am talking word on the streets, in the bars, amongst friends etc.) is that while Rajoy is obviously utterly useless, Puigdemont, Mas and their ilk are self-serving shit-stirrers who have purposefully inflammed an independence debate that prior to 2006 had relatively little momentum amongst the Catalan people (let's remember, the region had never had a pro-independence majority until 2012). And everyone here is in agreement that the whole thing has been handled terribly (on both sides).
Obviously this only represents one persepctive of the debate, I'm sure other Spanish dwellers may chip in.
