Can Brexit inspire Catalan independence?

The increasingly radical Catalonian independence project has been dealt its latest blow this week: on Tuesday, Spain’s constitutional court ruled that a projected September referendum on secession would be illegal. This means any plebiscite is effectively banned. But whether Catalonia’s pro-independence president Carles Puigdemont goes ahead anyway remains to be seen. A similarly defiant course of action was pursued by his predecessor Artur Mas, who held a vote in 2014 (in which eighty per cent of people backed independence), and is currently on trial.

The latest setback in the quest for Catalonian secessionism is particularly ill-timed. Just last month, Puigdemont and his Vice President Oriol Junqueras addressed MEPs in Brussels in a bid to secure their support for independence, assuring those present that although their party is determined to break from Spain, it is committed to remaining part of the EU as an independent state. Their pitch was condemned by Esteban Gonzalez Pons, an MEP of Mariano Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party, as an incitement