Interview by Ronan Burtenshaw

It has been a dramatic few days in Catalan politics. Brutal repression met this weekend’s independence referendum — deemed illegal by the Spanish state —with over 800 injured in a crackdown by riot police.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was unmoved by international media condemnation, denying a referendum had taken place despite more than two million ballots being cast. The events, he said, were “repugnant acts against democrats.”

Madrid’s right-wing Partido Popular (PP) government looks set to continue its intransigent approach to the separatist movement, hoping it will ignite Spanish nationalist sentiments and place the country’s Left in a difficult position. Already, leading Catalan independence figures have been arrested and charged with sedition.

But the independence movement is pressing ahead — first with today’s general strike, the largest in the region’s history, and shortly, many anticipate, with a declaration of sovereignty by the Catalan parliament.

The most radical component of the independence movement is the anticapitalist party Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), who secured over three hundred thousand votes and ten parliamentary seats in the 2015 regional elections. Jacobin’s Europe editor Ronan Burtenshaw spoke to Lluc Salellas, a member of the CUP’s national executive, about recent events and the road ahead.