Another Attack on the Act of Settlement
The 1701 Act of Settlement forbids the British sovereign to be a Roman Catholic, or to be married to one. However, the leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, has “agreed a pact”, says The Scotsman, with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics, to campaign against the Act.
It would appear that, on Mr Salmond’s part, the pact is an act of political expediency in an effort to gain support from Roman Catholic voters in central Scotland, who traditionally have supported the Labour party. O’Brien, on the other hand is zealously pursuing the late Cardinal Winning’s agenda to have the Act revoked, and is understood to have put his views on the Act to Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown in the middle of June, when he met them in London.
The Salmond and O’Brien pact is undoubtedly a further ratcheting up of opposition to the Act. O’Brien intends to keep the issue to the forefront, according to his spokesman, who said, “The meeting [between Salmond and O’Brien] will be followed up with initiatives to raise awareness about this. There was agreement that the issue had slipped into the background in recent years and that people needed to be reminded of the injustice that it represents.”
All the more reason for true Protestants to be vigilant at the throne of grace, seeking that God would prevent the Act from being repealed or adversely amended and preserve this most important safeguard of the Protestant constitution of Britain. “Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail” (Ps 9:19).
NMR