After the crackdown by the Spanish government, demonstrators demand that Catalonia be allowed to decide its own future

Some 200 peopple demonstrated in central London on Wednesday evening outside Senate House, where a MEP from the People‘s Party of Catalonia was speaking. Addressing the crowd, Tariq Ali pointed to the strong echoes of the Franco dictatorship in what the Spanish government was doing and asked why the EU was silent.

As the protest was going on reports were coming in of protests taking place in Barcelona and across Catalonia after the Spanish government seized the Catalan government buildings and took control of its finances. The mood was one of defiance and a determination that the independence referendum on 1 October must proceed.

Earlier in the day, Spanish police raided several Catalan regional government offices and arrested officials in order to stop the referendum from taking place. Catalonia‘s president accused the government in Madrid of suspending the region‘s autonomy