Thursday 5 January 2012

MK campaign featured in Scotsman and Western Mail

MK’s campaign for a Cornish Assembly was today featured in both the Scotsman and the Western Mail newspapers. David Willcock’s article which appeared in yesterday’s Independent was in the Scotsman under the heading “We want to be just like Scotland, say Cornish nationalists.”

The Western Mail article was meanwhile titled “Plaid Cymru backs devolution bid by fellow Celts in Cornwall” and included the thoughts of Labour MP Paul Flynn. It was as follows:

A campaign for devolution for Cornwall is being backed by Plaid Cymru.

Plaid MP Jonathan Edwards, who represents Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, launched an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling “for the formation of a democratically elected Cornish assembly to take decisions for the benefit of the people of Cornwall”.

The motion commemorates the 10th anniversary of the presentation of a petition to Downing Street signed by 50,000 people, equivalent to 10% of Cornwall’s population, demanding a referendum on devolution.

Mr Edwards said the campaign chimed with Plaid’s call for greater powers for the National Assembly.

“The Cornish people feel they have a distinct national identity and that needs to be reflected,” he said.

“If I was a unionist what I would be putting forward would be a vision of a federal British state, with equal powers for each of the historic nations.”

The motion was signed by a number of other Welsh MPs – Plaid Cymru’s Elfyn Llwyd and Hywel Williams, as well as Labour’s Paul Flynn, who also lent his support to what he described as “one of the great issues of the day”.

“Cornwall is the one [region of England] which has the strongest identity,” said Mr Flynn.

“The Celts were driven west by the barbarous Anglo Saxons who were all dressed in wool and dyed blue.

“The civilised Celtic people were driven to the edges.

“I have been a lifelong advocate of devolution and I am keen to see as much devolution as possible to the other Celtic nations.”

That was echoed by Mr Williams, who said: “After successful referendums in Scotland and Wales in 1997 it was commonsense that the next should be in Cornwall.

“Plaid Cymru’s sister party Mebyon Kernow (Sons of Cornwall) collected 50,000 declarations in support of a Cornish Assembly but the Labour government of the time confusingly started the process of English devolution in the North East rather than Cornwall where there was a clear level of support.

“The ongoing constitutional change – in Europe, in Wales and with the upcoming independence referendum in Scotland – make it appropriate to put a Cornish assembly back on the agenda.”

The move is not the first attempt to secure devolution for Cornwall.

In 2009, Liberal Democrat MP Dan Rogerson presented, The Government of Cornwall Bill to Parliament calling for devolution on the grounds that: “Constitutionally, Cornwall has the right to a level of self-Government, as demonstrated by the Cornish Foreshore Case in 1858 which confirmed that Cornwall is legally a Duchy which is extraterritorial to England.”

Cornwall is considered to be one of six Celtic nations in Europe, along with Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and Brittany.

It has its own language, similar to Welsh and which is still spoken, albeit by a far smaller percentage of the population. According to a study by Exeter University, only 0.1% of the population are competent conversationalists in the tongue.

However the language, Kernowek, has been undergoing a revival, with dual-language road signs an increasingly common sight and the opening of a creche teaching young children the language.

Although the Mebyon Kernow party, which campaigns for Cornish independence, is yet to rise to national prominence, it won three council seats in 2009.

Councillor Dick Cole, the leader of Mebyon Kernow, said: “It remains a disgrace that Tony Blair’s Labour government – which supported devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – dismissed the declarations and refused to consider demands for greater powers for Cornwall.”

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