January 16th, 1707: The day the Act of Union was signed that brought Scotland into the United Kingdom.
January 16th, 2007: The announcement that Scotland’s nationalist party wants to declare Scotland’s independence once and for all:
Having disappeared 300 years ago during the January 16, 1707 Act of Union, a limited Scottish parliament was restored in 1999 as part of a bid to blunt separatism by Blair’s Labour government.
However, the SNP insists desire for a separate Scotland is higher than ever.
‘Those in the London parties who would deny the people their right to choose are the political reincarnation of the ‘parcel of rogues’ of 1707 who sold Scotland away,’ SNP leader Alex Salmond said.
His party played on the grievance by launching a campaign featuring posters declaring: ‘1707 No right to choose — 2007 the right to choose.’
George Foulkes, a Labour member of the unelected House of Lords in London, told AFP his party was mounting a vigorous campaign for seats in the Scottish parliament as he was ‘genuinely concerned’ about rising separatist sentiment.
Though two polls since November showed that a majority of Scots and English favored a split, a BBC poll on Tuesday found that 56 percent of Scots and 73 percent of the English supported union.
I’m sure there’ll be Braveheart quotes aplenty… and naturally it leaves the question of Wales and Northern Ireland on the table as well, should the SNP be successful.
Closer to home, one has to wonder whether the Bloc Quebecois will be paying close attention.