Early yesterday afternoon, the expulsion of Nicolás Redondo Terreros, a veteran party leader in the Basque country, from the PSOE was announced, a decision taken by the Federal Executive Committee “for his repeated contempt” for the party. The former leader of the Basque socialists said in a statement that he had learned of the news from the media. “I was not aware of it, nor do I have any communication from the PSOE”, he said.
Redondo has been very critical of the possibility of approving an amnesty for the leaders of the procés, (which led to the refereendum on independence in Catalonia in 2017), which he had described as a “legal aberration” and a “political attack on democracy”.
In the evening, at the presentation of the Ibero-American Torre del Oro Prize awarded by the Chamber of Commerce and the Cajasol Foundation to Felipe González, former president of the PSOE government, more fuel was added to the fire, and González expressed his displeasure at Redondo’s expulsion. He did so at the end of the event, in statements to journalists. He recalled that Nicolás Redondo Urbieta, father of the member now expelled and leader of the UGT during González’s time, called a general strike in December 1988 against the pension reform promoted by the government over which he presided. “It never occurred to me to think that this was punishable by expulsion, and it was a serious thing, not an opinion,” he stressed.
