It will serve little useful purpose right now to describe as unwarranted, arbitrary, and unjust the suspension of Spanish parliamentary deputies Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull and Josep Rull by Congress's presiding board. The writing had been on the wall for weeks, probably since the night of the Spanish general election on 28th April, when prime minister Pedro Sanchez knew that the results arithmetic allowed him to govern via majorities of variable geometry, thus depending as little as possible on the votes of the pro-independence Catalans. The subordination of the legislative power to the judiciary, renouncing its own competencies and refusing to take any steps to protect some of its members, is as clamorous as it is worrying in term of the proper functioning of democracy.
Nobody could imagine the British, German or French Parliaments committing an abuse of this magnitude which breaches fundamental rights. In fact, the legislative chambers of all three of these countries either have a debate open on the Catalan situation among current legislative initiatives (Bundestag), have sent a public letter of support from 40 senators (France) or have had a committee in place to monitor the Catalan situation for years (the United Kingdom).
As was easy to understand, the Socialists did their sums and, 48 hours before the municipal and European elections, were unable to resist the opportunity to compete with the right in a new act of repression against the people of Catalonia. The Go get 'em! chant used to cheer on the Spanish police in their repression of the 2017 referendum has found its judicial sequel in the trial of independence process leaders that has been taking place for months in the Supreme Court, and in which we see on a daily basis that the charges cannot be proven and that, in spite of that, the defendants are maintained in provisional prison. This is Go get em! 2.
All it lacked (chapter 3 of the saga) was for the Spanish legislature to climb on board, and now it has done so unashamedly. The PSOE is still the same party that backed the suspension of Catalan autonomy and the decapitation of its institutions under article 155 in October 2017. Before, they gave their support from the opposition benches facing Rajoy; now, they give it from government. The faces change but the politics do not.