Cornish Guardian (St. Austell & Fowey)
Time for government to meet
Next Wednesday marks 10 years since the government announced that the Cornish would be recognised through the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Here Dick Cole, the leader of Mebyon Kernow – the Party for C
ON April 24, 2014, the official government press release stated that “the decision to recognise the unique identity of the Cornish, now affords them the same status... as the UK’S other Celtic people, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.”
Then Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the United Kingdom was “stronger” when its different regional identities were recognised.
He told the media: “There is a distinctive history, culture and language in Cornwall, which we should celebrate and make sure is properly looked after and protected. It is a very special part of our country and I think we are stronger when we recognise our different regional and cultural differences and celebrate them.”
Sadly, anticipated changes in policy have not materialised over the last 10 years because government and numerous public bodies have failed to meet their responsibilities.
They have failed to properly reflect the status of the Cornish throughout all aspects of cultural, economic and political life in Cornwall, and across the United Kingdom as a whole, while many of their actions have actually been prejudicial to the intent of the Framework Convention.
Indeed, it is telling that the two most recent opinions produced by the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention, in 2017 and 2023, have been extremely critical of the state’s failings with regard to their treatment of the Cornish.
It is right that we review what has happened over the last 10 years, as we refresh our campaigns going forward. Cornwall has not been treated the same as the other Celtic nations. Central government has continued to have a “four-nation” approach to the governance of the United Kingdom, which ignores Cornwall’s nationhood.
Those in authority, deliberately or unwittingly, have chosen to maintain a significant blindspot when it comes to the Cornish and their national identity, preferring not to act on the constitutional, political, cultural and other needs of our nation.
An early example of what was to come was the consideration of new
Westminster parliamentary seats, which was dictated by the 2011 Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act.
This included provision for Boundary Commissions for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with another for England, which included Cornwall.
Political machinations delayed the review, which finally commenced in 2016, when Mebyon Kernow appealed to central government to modify the Act to protect
Cornish territoriality. We made the argument that, since Cornish recognition, the legislation which guided the Boundary Review was in conflict with the spirit and intent of the Framework Convention. Our representations were rebuffed.
When the actual review was abandoned, new legislation was brought forward which culminated in a fresh Parliamentary Constituencies Bill. This passed into law in late 2020. Calls for a Cornish Boundary Commission were rejected and even attempts to protect Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly as an electoral area to guarantee there could never be a cross-tamar ‘Devonwall’ seat were unsuccessful.
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly were not even included as “protected constituencies” in the Act alongside Orkney and Shetland, Na h-eileanan an Iar, Ynys Mon and the Isle of Wight.
Some of Cornwall’s Conservative MPS and Liberal Democrat lords did raise concerns, but I was absolutely dumbfounded when they declined to move any amendments and allowed the Bill to pass unaltered. I cannot fathom how politicians in London did so little to protect Cornwall’s thousand-year-old border and to prevent future Boundary Reviews erasing Cornwall from the political map.
It has been the same with the British-irish Council, founded in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, which brings together the UK and Irish governments, the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as the governments of the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.
Cornwall continues to be the only
Celtic part of the United Kingdom that is not officially represented at summits of this body.
Some limited progress has been made in that the so-called ‘Devolution Deal’ agreed in November 2023, which has confirmed that the leader of Cornwall Council may attend meetings of the British-irish Council, though this will only be as an observer and “on matters pertaining to the Cornish language”.
In addition, Cornwall Council has brokered an agreement with the Welsh Government and also attended the new Celtic Forum, involving governmental representatives from Brittany, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, plus Asturias and Galicia. But this has not happened because of Westminster – it has been in spite of Westminster.
There are so many examples of Cornwall and the Cornish being ignored. The new British passport was launched in 2020 and symbolically included text from three of the UK’S four Celtic languages – Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish – but there is no Cornish.
More recently, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been carrying out a consultation about how it approaches implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Government is planning to “establish a UK inventory of intangible cultural heritage” but, once again, the DCMS states that this will be done by “representatives of the four UK nations”.
Time and time again, our national identity is being denied and significant benefits from recognition through the Framework Convention continue to be illusory.
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have meaningful devolution settlements. Over the last decade, the National Assembly of Wales has gained additional powers and evolved into a parliament – Senedd Cymru. The Scottish Parliament has also secured additional powers and there was even an independence referendum in Scotland.
In Cornwall, the situation is very different and the promised parity with “the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish” has not transpired. There continue to be significant contradictions between the status of the Cornish national minority within the United Kingdom and the present administrative arrangements to the west of the Tamar.
Government continues to administer Cornwall as an English county,
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Time and time again, our national identity is being denied and significant benefits from recognition through the Framework Convention continue to be illusory
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The state has an undeniable obligation to support and fund Cornwall’s distinct identity and culture, including the language
while promoting it as part of a “South West England” region, or a “Great South West” entity, undermining the territorial integrity of Cornwall. At the same time, so many public bodies do not serve Cornwall as a distinct unit, which further undermines all manner of aspects of Cornish life.
Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall has certainly been striving hard for a proper devolved settlement on a par with the other Celtic parts of the UK. It is interesting to recall that Mebyon Kernow launched the initial edition of ‘Towards a National Assembly of Cornwall’ on St Piran’s Day 2014, just seven weeks before the announcement about national minority status. This document has