Catalonia referendum: 90% voted for independence, say officials – as it happened

The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, has voted in Cornellà de Terri, a village in Girona province. Catalan politician Jordi Sánchez posted a picture of the moment.

Stephen Burgen writes:

Not every polling station has been raided. There is a big crowd at Concepció primary school in Barcelona just around the corner from Balmes school which police have already raided but no sign of police so far here.

Barcelona’s mayor, Ada Colau, has tweeted her discontent about the Spanish police’s intervention in the referendum.

She writes: “A cowardly president has filled our city with police. Barcelona, city of peace, is not afraid.”

Enric Millo, Spain’s highest representative in Catalonia, has been speaking to reporters. He said: “The sole objective of today’s operation has been to ensure that this illegal referendum does not take place and the Spanish and Catalan people can continue to live in peace and liberty as they have these past 40 years.

“The referendum has not taken place. We will not accept that a government kidnapped by a minority imposes its ideas on society.

El Pais journalist Josep Cata has tweeted a photo of the first vote being cast in Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, the smallest village in Catalonia. He says local police arrived when voting opened, but did nothing to prevent people from casting their vote.

Videos of Spanish police in riot gear removing urns from polling stations continue to appear on social media.

Stephen Burgen, who is reporting for the Guardian today, says police have taken away the ballot box in Sant Julià de Ramis in Girona province, where the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, votes.

Our Madrid correspondent Sam Jones is with voters in a school Barcelona. He reports:

All is calm at the Escola Cervantes with Mossos hanging back but getting twitchy. The same isn’t true elsewhere in Barcelona. The scenes of Spanish national police in riot gear clearing polling stations in other schools are not going down well with the crowds.

The Spanish interior minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, has just tweeted a video of police removing urns. He says the police are enforcing their legal mandate against the “illegal referendum”.

Large queues have been forming outside polling stations overnight as Catalans wait anxiously to cast their vote, but there are already reports of Spanish national police in riot gear removing people from occupied schools and taking away ballot boxes from polling stations in Barcelona.

La Vanguardia correspondent Mayka Navarro just tweeted a video of Spanish police appearing to push voters back in the centre of the Catalan capital.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of referendum day in Catalonia.

Spain is bracing itself for an unprecedented challenge to its territorial unity as the Catalan regional government stages an independence referendum that has been suspended by the country’s constitutional court and dealt a series of devastating blows by the central government in Madrid.

The Catalan government has predicted that 60% of Catalonia’s 5.3 million eligible voters are heading to the polls in defiance of the Spanish government and constitutional court, which have declared the vote illegal.

Neither the rain nor the Spanish authorities are discouraging many Catalans from turning out to try to vote. Hundreds of people have been queuing outside the polling station at the Cervantes primary school in central Barcelona since 5am. Inside are dozens of people - adults and children - who have been camped out since Friday night in the hope that their occupation will allow the school to be used a a voting centre.

Joan Garcia, an agricultural engineer who’s just spent his second night there, reports that people slept well. Officers from the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, are under orders to empty polling stations and seal them off. But that’s not happening here. The police, who were greeted with a cheerful “Bom dia!” from the crowd, are coming and going but not intervening so far.The people who have gathered to vote are in good spirits despite the rain, but deadly serious about why they have come.

“I’ve been here since 5.15,” said 43-year-old Mireia Estape, who lives locally. “I’m here to fight for our rights and our language and for our right to live better and to have a future.”

Asked how likely it was that people would be allowed to cast their ballots, she was insistent: “We will vote today.”

One man in the crowd, who did not wish to be named, said that Catalans had a right to vote.

“I’m European, not African. In Africa they don’t let people vote.” He said he had come to because, “Catalans need to vote. They’re robbing us in Spain”.

It would, he said, would be a great day: “Spain has lost 22 colonies. Today it’s going to lose another.”

Another would-be voter was blunter about her motivation: “I don’t want to live in a fascist country.”

There was a moment of panic at ten to eight, when a car moved towards the crowd. But it turned out it was carrying a ballot box that was quickly taken inside to cheers and shouts of “Votarem!” (“We will vote!”).

Within 10 minutes, the organisers inside announce that voting would begin at 9am. The Mossos continued to maintain a discreet distance. Asked how he was feeling, one officer replied, with a shrug, “Well, here we are, aren’t we?”