Madrid struggles

Madrid has also made clumsy moves. The decision for instance to charter a ferry decked with a giant drawing of Looney Tunes characters, including Tweetie - alonia was met with derision.

The hashtag # FreeTweety became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, and the little yellow bird an emblem for Catalan separatists’ fight to vote.

Analysts say the government has not poured effort into convincing Catalans as it doesn’t want to give an illegal referendum legitimacy by launching a campaign.

As such, the situation is markedly different from last year’s Brexit vote, which London had agreed to.

But Caroline Gray, an expert on nationalist movements in Spain at Aston University, says both those in Britain’s “Remain” camp and Madrid were over- confident.

“The Remain campaign thought they would win the referendum,” she says, and they lost, with Britain choosing to leave the EU.

“Rajoy seems to have the attitude that if I don’t respond to all this, then eventually it will blow over. ‘ If I keep saying no, support will die down for independence’.”

But it hasn’t, and fears are growing that the Catalan society will be left damaged.

a divided region and nor, alas, can Madrid’s fumbling response to the challenge,” The Observer summed up Sunday in an editorial.

“It is time for both sides to pause and ponder the damage. It’s time to pull back.”