It started as a mockery on social networks, then becoming a trending topic in Twitter, subsequently promoted by unionist leaders and Madrid-based newspapers, and now it has become an official movement. The Tabarnia organization was launched on Tuesday, claiming that the part of Catalonia in which pro-independence parties are not a majority should secede, and become a separate territory within Spain. The area encompassed in this imaginary entity is part of the Barcelona and the Tarragona regions.

The movement remains partly satirical. Its appointed president is the playwright and actor Albert Boadella, who via video said he was the ‘president in exile,’ as a mockery of Carles Puigdemont’s position after being deposed by the Spanish government last October. Boadella said that the movement hopes to bring unionist citizens together who “mentally disconnected from institutional Catalonia.” According to him, pro-independence parties “do not care that they’re leading us all towards absolute ruin.”

In the presentation of the movement, Tabarnia promoters claimed that while they do not want to become a political party, they will take to the streets “if the separatist leaders, from a social minority, intend to declare independence again.”

‘If nationalists claim the non-existent right to divide, anyone can do it,’ claims Ciutadans leader

A number of unionist political leaders supported this movement in the days following the December 21 election. “If nationalists claim the non-existent right to divide, anyone can do it,” said leader of Ciutadans (the main unionist party in Catalonia) Inés Arrimadas, a few weeks ago. “Tabarnia is a ruthless mirror for nationalists, it is the reflection of their lack of solidarity and boredom,” said Juan Carlos Girauta, an MP in the Spanish Parliament, also with Ciutadans.

‘Ethnicist attempt to balkanize conflict,’ says pro-independence official

Some pro-independence politicians also reacted to this movement by highlighting the dangers of trying to split Catalonia into two separate communities. “It is clear that this thing about Tabarnia is an ethnicist attempt to ‘balkanize’ the conflict between Catalonia and Spain. They continue thinking only in a military way,” said Francesc ‘Titot’ Ribera, a CUP official. “Referendum on self-determination for Tabarnia, now!,” ironically said Mireia Boya, a former CUP MP.