The Real Reason We Should All Celebrate 2001; This Week Is the 200th Anniversary of the Creation of the United Kingdom. So Why Has Nobody Noticed?

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Byline: CORRELLI BARNETT

YESTERDAY, Australians celebrated in magnificent and proud style the 100th anniversary of the Act of Federation which turned separate colonies into a unified nation state.

Church bells rang out across the country, carnival crowds swarmed the streets, fireworks burst in glory across the southern sky.

Yesterday also marked the 200th anniversary of the culminating act in the long historical process of creating our own United Kingdom of Great Britain.

It was on January 1, 1801, that the Act of Union came into effect.

By this Act, Ireland, which hitherto had its own home-rule parliament in Dublin (if one controlled by a small, unrepresentative Protestant elite), became an integrated part of the United Kingdom along with Scotland and Wales.

All political power in the British Isles was henceforth centred in Westminster. The building of the British nation state was complete.

Yet did we mark this tremendous event?

Where were our fireworks and carnivals to celebrate? The answer is nowhere. Our 'New …