THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: Catalonia to move to declare independence from Spain on Monday.

Pro-independence parties which control the regional parliament have asked for a debate and vote on Monday on declaring independence, the source said. A declaration should follow this vote, although it is unclear when.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont earlier told the BBC that his government would ask the region’s parliament to declare independence after tallying votes from last weekend’s referendum, which Madrid says was illegal.

“This will probably finish once we get all the votes in from abroad at the end of the week and therefore we shall probably act over the weekend or early next week,” he said in remarks published on Wednesday.

Well, the vote almost certainly was illegal — but once a people decide to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, it becomes difficult-to-impossivle to restore those bands.