Events in Catalonia over the last few weeks have created the biggest crisis the 1978 regime has ever seen. The eruption of the masses onto the scene has changed everything. They have defied the Spanish state ban on the independence referendum on 1 October, defended the headquarters of the anti-capitalist CUP against an illegal police raid, guaranteed the opening of polling stations and brought the country to halt on 3 October to protest brutal police repression. Committees in Defence of the referendum have been set up in neighbourhoods and towns, and are now starting to coordinate.

Though reform of the US healthcare system is now considered common sense, the Democrats cannot and will not deliver. Only a mass independent political force—with single payer placed at the top of its agenda—is capable of winning this fight.