SPANISH NEWS: #Spexit trending on social media following EU court ruling Catalan separatist was MEP with immunity when jailed

THE hashtag ‘Spexit’ has been trending on Twitter following the European Court of Justice’s ruling on Thursday that a Catalan separatist politician was covered by immunity as an Member of the European Parliament when the Spanish Supreme Court jailed him in October.

The call for Spain to leave the EU, associated with the far-right, is not completely new. But the ECJ’s decision that the leader of the Catalan Republic Left (ERC) Oriol Junqueras enjoyed parliamentary immunity from the moment he was elected an MEP seems to have fired up the movement.

Junqueras won a seat in the European Parliament in the May election, but was in pre-trial detention in a Madrid prison due his part in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum and declaration of independence, ruled illegal by Spanish courts, and could not be sworn in.

In October the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced him to 13 years behind bars for sedition and misuse of public funds. Now the ECJ says the ERC leader was protected by parliamentary immunity, prompting calls for his immediate release.

‘Plataforma Spexit’ was one of the Twitter feeds to react angrily to the ECJ ruling, posting “Why do we want to form part of this empire, if we already form one”.

They also accused the PSOE, PP and Cuidadanos political parties of remaining silent in the face of “a hostile organisation.”

“Get your dirty hands off our country. For a free Spain”, another message reads.

“Humiliation” and “sovereignty” have been some of the most repeated terms in the tweets.

In the declaration to announce the launch of the platform it states, “in the face of a new attack on our sovereignty we have been born to say this has finished, that we want a free country and not a colony of Merkel and Macron. We will achieve, at last, the freedom of the Spanish nation. Welcome to SPEXIT.”