Pro union protesters take to the streets of Barcelona demanding the impr...

Pro union protesters take to the streets of Barcelona demanding the imprisonment of Catalan's

Spanish officials organised a unionist march through central Barcelona today in which they claimed more than a million people took to the streets to resoundingly reject Catalonia’s declaration of independence. 

The crowds, draped in thousands of Spanish flags and singing ‘Viva España’, chanted that Carles Puigdemont, the sacked Catalan leader, should be sent to prison for declaring independence. 

Protesters also shouted obscenities about Catalan journalists, who they accuse of twisting the facts and selling fake news.

Thousands were chanting, ‘this time we are going to vote,’ declaring their intention to make their presence felt at the ballot box on 21 December rather than boycott the poll, as they did during the October 1 referendum.  

Meanwhile, Catalan independence parties appear to be losing their parliamentary majority ahead of December's election, according to a poll published this morning. 

The poll was taken from last Monday to Thursday, just as Spain's central government was preparing to take control of the region, which then made a unilateral declaration of independence on Friday.

Pro-independence parties were seen as taking 42.5 percent of the vote while anti-independence parties would win 43.4 percent, according to the poll of some 1,000 people surveyed by Sigma Dos and published in the anti-independence newspaper El Mundo.

The wafer-thin margin between the two sides predicts a hard-fought campaign to December's ballot.  

Senior Spanish politicians led today's protest, including Albert Rivera, a congressman from Madrid, alongside the leaders of all the Catalan unionist parties. 

Officials who organised the huge unionist demonstration in Barcelona today declared that the total number of people attending the rally was 1.3million. 

Organisers said the goal of Sunday's march's was to defend Spain's unity and reject 'an unprecedented attack in the history of democracy'.

Leaders of rival pro-union parties from the ruling conservatives, the pro-business liberals and the socialists joined together under the slogan 'We are all Catalonia. Common sense for co-existence!' 

Grassroots group Societat Civil Catalan called for those who oppose Catalonia breaking away to march at noon. Demonstrators, many waving Spanish, Catalan and European Union flags, flooded a central boulevard. 

Societat Civil Catalana president Alex Ramos said: 'We have organised ourselves late, but we are here to show that there is a majority of Catalans that are no longer silent and that no longer want to be silenced.'

Belgium has today weighed in on the debate, saying it might grant the Catalan president asylum if he is likely to be arrested by Spanish authorities. 

Talking of the potential offering of asylum, Belgium's migration minister Theo Francken said: 'It is not unrealistic if you look at the situation.'  

There were fears that the huge demonstration would descend into violence following ugly scenes in Barcelona on Friday where separatists were beaten up in the street by pro-Spanish gangs.

In the hours following the declaration of independence, journalists were forced to barricade themselves in their offices to escape a baying mob and teenagers hid in a community centre as unionist thugs went on the rampage.

It comes after a pro-Spanish motorcycle parade roared through the city yesterday afternoon, prompting smiles and gestures of support from the majority of Catalans who polls have suggested do not to want independence from Spain. 

As Barcelona once again was taken over by a day of protest,  Belgium has weighed in on the debate, saying it might grant the Catalan president asylum if he is likely to be arrested.

Granting Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont political asylum in Belgium would be "not unrealistic" if he asks for it, the Belgian migration minister said, underlining his country's position as a contrarian voice in the Spanish standoff.

The Madrid government sacked the Catalan leader and dismissed the region's parliament on Friday, hours after it declared itself an independent nation.

Spain's constitutional court has also started a review of Catalonia's independence vote for prosecutors to decide if it constituted rebellion.

While there was no indication Puigdemont was hoping to come to Belgium, the country is one of few members of the European Union where EU citizens can ask for political asylum.

'It is not unrealistic if you look at the situation,' Belgium's migration minister, Theo Francken, told Belgian broadcaster VTM.

'They are already talking about a prison sentence,' Francken, a member of Flemish nationalist party N-VA, said. 

'The question is to what extent he would get a fair trial.'