Catalan independence movement
Other individuals include:All of the Spanish national political parties in Catalonia reject the idea of independence. Together they represent a majority of votes yet a minority of seats in the Catalan parliament. Of these, only Podemos is prepared to hold a referendum on the issue in Catalonia; others such as Ciutadans, and the People's Party of Catalonia, which had 25.4% and 4.2% of the vote respectively in the 2017 Catalan regional election, have always opposed the notion of Catalan self-determination. The Socialists' Party (13.9% of vote) opposes independence as well. While some of its members supported the idea of a self-determination referendum up until 2012, the official position as of 2015 is that the Spanish Constitution should be reformed in order to better accommodate Catalonia. A majority of voters of left-wing platform Catalonia Yes We Can (8.94%) reject independence although the party favours a referendum in which it would campaign for Catalonia remaining part of Spain. CDC's Catalanist former-partner Unió came out against independence and fared badly in every subsequent election, eventually disbanding due to bankruptcy in 2017.
2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
On 27 October, the Catalan parliament voted in a secret ballot to unilaterally declare independence from Spain, with some deputies boycotting a vote considered illegal for violating the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Spain, as the lawyers of the Parliament of Catalonia warned. As a result, the government of Spain invoked the Constitution to remove the regional authorities and enforce direct rule the next day, with a regional election being subsequently called for 21 December 2017 to elect a new Parliament of Catalonia. Puigdemont and part of his cabinet fled to Belgium after being ousted, as the Spanish Attorney General pressed for charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds against them.