{"id":457,"date":"2007-05-01T07:56:59","date_gmt":"2007-05-01T06:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=457"},"modified":"2007-05-01T07:56:59","modified_gmt":"2007-05-01T06:56:59","slug":"300-years-of-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=457","title":{"rendered":"300 years of the Union"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today marks the 300th anniversary of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Acts_of_Union_1707\">Acts of Union<\/a> when the English and Scottist Parliaments combined into a single Parliament at Westmintser. Ironically,  in just two days time, we might see the most serious threat to the Union since its creation.<br \/>\nAs I explained in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/2007\/03\/whats_happening_in_scotland.html\">this posting<\/a>, on Thursday there is an election to the Scottish Parliament when the Scottish National Party looks likely to replace the Labour Party as the largest single party, elected on a manifesto promising a referendum on Scottish independence.<br \/>\nIn fact, even if the SNP takes power and even if a referendum is held, I cannot see it securing a majority vote for independence. We could be in the situation that Canada has experienced with Quebec nationalists winning the provincial elections but failing to win a referendum for independence.<br \/>\nHowever, the debate about independence could be divisive and I look foward to a time when borders mean less not more. It is this sentiment that is behind my essay <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/question.html\">&#8220;A Question For Our Age&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today marks the 300th anniversary of the Acts of Union when the English and Scottist Parliaments combined into a single Parliament at Westmintser. Ironically, in just two days time, we might see the most serious threat to the Union since its creation. As I explained in this posting, on Thursday there is an election to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}