Catalonia and Spain: will the referendum on independence go ahead?

The Catalan government has indicated it still intends to hold a referendum on independence on 1 October despite the Spanish government’s insistence that the vote will not take place. Sebastian Balfour writes that nothing could be more unpredictable than the outcome of the current impasse, as an almost unstoppable force, the Catalan movement for independence, is about to clash head on with an almost immovable object in the shape of the Spanish state.