Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas's immediate removal from the Parliamentary Bureau by his party, JxCat, is a symptom of convulsive times in which, in the face of ideological confusion and democratic weakness, political spaces are tending towards the conservative solution of closing ranks and penalising debate. In fact, it is a tendency typical of partisan politics understood in the worst sense of the expression, a tendency that becomes extreme when the going gets tough, when the political roadmap is unsure, when the separation of powers is shaky and when anti-political populism increasingly rears its head. And when, as a consequence of all this, serious debate of ideas is feared and self-criticism is nipped in the bud.