AS clangers go, Carmen Calvo’s was a classic – Spain’s deputy prime minister argued during an interview that Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014 did NOT happen.

Calvo was speaking to Catalan radio station RAC1, when she surprised her interviewer by saying that self-determination “is not recognised in any democracy”.

When she was asked about the Scottish indyref, she replied: “Well in Scotland there was not an agreed upon referendum, no there was not.

“[David] Cameron, who is probably not going to be ranked among the best European leaders, not only did he lose control of this situation he lost control of an even bigger one, because right now they’re negotiating Brexit.”

Perhaps something was lost in translation, but several sources have confirmed Calvo’s remarks as being accurately interpreted.

She went on to defend Spanish democracy: “In the case of Canada, there does not exist any constitution of the democracies with which Spain is compared because we are a very high level democracy, a demanding and rigorous democracy.

“There does not exist the possibility to have a referendum about the rupture of a territory because a minority of two million [pro-indy Catalan] people relative to the rest of the electoral body of all Spaniards cannot break the rules because this is democracy.”

Calvo said she did not know if a “social majority” existed for independence, because “it can’t be voted on”. When pressed about those who wanted to decide themselves, said: “But a social majority to vote on it without contemplating a self-determination referendum in the constitution which all of us Spaniards voted on, including the Catalans, would be breaking the rules.

“I don’t think the Spanish constitution is ever going to open up to recognising the right of self-determination. It’s that simple because there is not one single democracy that recognises this.”

Calvo’s office only muddled things further in tweets from her official account: “If Europe stops issuing signs that democracy is the only way we go wrong ... There is no possibility of making a referendum; in democracy above any decision is the legal certainty of the rules of the game that no one can jump: the constitution we voted in a referendum.”

Quim Torra, Catalonia’s president, sent Calvo a picture of the Scottish Referendum Bill, adding: “Dear Vice President of Spain, I am pleased to attach the document by which the United Kingdom and Scotland agreed to a referendum on independence. Cordially.”

Carles Puigdemont, the exiled former Catalan president who is visiting the Faroes, was not surprised that “those who said there was no referendum on October 1 [in Catalonia] now say there was no referendum in Scotland”.

“The evidence is so clear that it’s almost embarrassing to have to defend the obvious,” he said. “The UK celebrated a referendum on self-determination based on respect towards Scotland and the will of the Scottish Parliament.”

SNP MP Douglas Chapman, a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia, told The National: “For someone in this position as deputy prime minister to be so ignorant of our referendum, agreed between two governments, is beyond my comprehension.”