Yesterday, Spanish foreign affairs minister Josep Borrell, in an interview with Politico, said that he is "very much [more] worried about the unity of the United Kingdom than the unity of the Kingdom of Spain" and that he believes that the UK "will split apart before" Spain. The comments were strongly criticised by the British press; the Daily Express, for example, accused him of "gloating about Brexit chaos".
Spain GLOATS about #Brexit chaos by waring 'weak’ UK will SPLIT APART https://t.co/3wE1ANB9Ky pic.twitter.com/Qg4HzTeo8w
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) 20 de novembre de 2018
The Daily Telegraph's front page this Wednesday, meanwhile, uses even tougher words (paywall), reporting that Madrid has been "accused of hypocrisy for [Borrell's] comments in light of [the] Catalan crackdown". Specifically, they quote David Jones, a former Brexit minister as saying it shows "appalling hypocrisy".
David Jones, a Conservative MP from Wales, was Minister of State for Exiting the European Union until June 2017. The Telegraph notes that Borrell's comments contrast with "Britain's silence over Spain's crackdown against Catalan separatists when they tried to push illegally for independence". The Spanish minister said that Spain would have no problem recognising an independent Scotland if it were created following UK law. On the other hand, Madrid still does not recognise an independent Kosovo.
Other papers to report on the comments were the Daily Mail (under the headline: "We will NOT exclude Gibraltar, says May at PMQs amid fury at Spain's threat to block Brexit deal over the Rock and claims that an independent Scotland could rejoin the EU"), The Independent and The National.