Experts suggest any vote on the constitution will be thrown out of court and leaders of the so-called wildcat vote in Catalonia five years ago yesterday said with hindsight they should not have pursued a unilateral poll on independence.

Santíago Vila, a former business minister, was fined £51,000 for civil disobedience after the 2019 trial of separatist leaders.  Nine politicians and civic leaders were jailed for between nine and 13 years for sedition over their roles in staging the poll on splitting from Spain.

“Supporters were led to believe the referendum would be binding by the Catalan government, but this was not the case. They were also led to believe that Catalonia had the authority to legally break away from Spain which it did not. This caused lots of companies to leave the region. We tricked ourselves.”

“Supporters were led to believe the referendum would be binding by the Catalan government, but this was not the case. They were also led to believe that Catalonia had the authority to legally break away from Spain which it did not. This caused lots of companies to leave the region. We tricked ourselves.”

Maragall said: “One thing that we achieved was that now more than half of the political representation in the Catalan regional parliament is from parties who support independence. This does not give us a right to another unilateral independence declaration

Want to see how Scotland benefits from being part of the UK? – Unity Matters