ONE CORNWALL, MANY CORNWALLS

A report about Sheffield, A tale of two cities, makes an interesting and important point. A team from Sheffield University looked at life in two different areas of the city, Brightside (Labour MP David Blunkett) and Hallam (Liberal Democrat MP Nick Clegg). We are talking chalk and cheese, about serious inequalities between areas in the same city.

I have said often on this blog that Cornwall is not one uniform place, that life differs very much across the county, that there are Brightsides and Hallams here (see this postand this for example). It does not make sense to talk as though there is one Cornwall, disregarding signal differences, and I have indicated some of the mass of readily available evidence that shows the differences even within towns.

The talk of one Cornwall is entirely political and entirely unrelated to reality for people who live here. People who believe Cornwall is a political and national entity and should therefore have a devolved/independent government stress the oneness and tend to disregard the important differences. Cornish political nationalism totalises varying experiences and views.

What then do people who live here think?

Look at the post on the dispute in Penzance about the ferry terminal(s) there and about the wind turbines at Davidstow. Apparently not for them a one-Cornwall governing their county and lives and deciding local issues affecting them; they see that as Truro-centric. Listen to a meeting at Wadebridge on 30 October 2009 on the future of the town suggesting that people in distant west Cornwall might be indifferent about north Cornwall.

There are many Cornish identities, as there are many English identities. On the ground people rationally and emotionally identify with their immediate locality: Cornish from Padstow, Cornish from Camborne, Cornish from Troon, English from Newcastle, from Kentish Town. They also identify with other things and people, their social class and work and interests and friends, as I shall explore in a forthcoming post about identity in Cornwall. Of course, some people indeed claim a general Cornish identity and see Cornwall as their home county (or country), especially against another large identity; but to understand that properly look again at the messages from Penzance and Davidstow and Wadebridge.

Cornish political nationalism, seeing Cornish identity as a simple, monotone matter, does not sufficiently understand these complexities and lacks any comprehensive theoretical or pragmatic way of handling them.

Beyond the politicking of one Cornwall there are difficult questions of local empowerment within Cornwall. There are also important inequalities across Cornwall communities that should be tackled robustly and with effect; those are what we should focus relentlessly on, targeting the places and people of most need, and by reducing the inequalities thus make one Cornwall less of a slogan and more of a reality. Nationalism does not seem up to that task.

HOW SHOULD CORNWALL BE GOVERNED?

UPDATE 24 October 2009
The bill has run out of time and will not be debated or voted on this parliamentary session.

ORIGINAL POST 15 September 2009
A bill to create a Cornish assembly, similar to the Welsh one, was introduced in the Commons in July 2009 by Dan Rogerson, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall. The bill offers one form of change out of the many possible and it focuses on Cornwall only. Public response to it in Cornwall has been very limited and has ranged from cynicism to support, most people in Cornwall showing no discernible interest. The second reading is on 16 October 2009 but the bill is very unlikely to be reached by the Commons that day and will die. Nevertheless, I should like to look at the ideas and practicalities of the bill, especially as talk of wider change in local government throughout England is in the air.

You can read the text of the bill here.

A greater say
The question of the empowerment of Cornwall has been around for some time and attempts to give direction to these stirrings have been made in the last few years. For example, the case for a regional assembly was pressed by a lobby, the Cornish Constitutional Convention; and in 2000-2001 a petition calling for “a greater say” and an assembly got about 41 000 signatures from Cornwall residents. The question bubbles in the background though most people appear unengaged with it. However, undoubtedly many people in Cornwall want — well, what exactly? I think that different people may well interpret “a greater say” differently, stretching from the strengthening of the current form of local government administration to full independence; and the word “assembly” may well carry similarly diverse meanings for individuals. It is important to put forward all the possibilities and practicalities and be very clear about them so that there is for people in Cornwall an informed debate and genuine consultation.

Democratic deficits
We do not know exactly what form of independence or devolution or decentralisation people in Cornwall might or might not want; we are plagued by the scope for interpretation of people’s views. In 2009 there is a place for an open and thoroughgoing debate for all the people in Cornwall about the different sorts of change that might be had in the governing of Cornwall, a democratic opportunity after the undemocratic imposition of a unitary council. Alas, the bill was introduced into parliament without that; and there is no provision in the bill for the assembly to be ratified by a vote of people in Cornwall. These democratic deficits diminish the bill.

Change throughout England
People in any place would probably say that they want more say in what affects their lives. I think decentralisation, in the sense of local decision-making, is popular everywhere and a case can be made for ‘assemblies’ in every county and city, along with enhanced powers for lesser councils. The debate in England about these possibilities of decentralisation, subdued but not wholly silenced after the defeat of Labour’s regional scheme for the northeast, has now been animated by the input of Conservative party ideas which are discussed here. Of course, Conservative governments have a record of emasculating local government so their present pre-election ideas for strengthening it must be taken with salt and caution. Labour and Libdems, are also broadly in favour of decentralisation, and for all I know the Monster Raving Looney party is too. Indeed, no one seems to be against it in principle and fuzziness. It is, initially at any rate, in this context that any debate in Cornwall should be placed even though the Rogerson bill is about devolution not decentralisation and local government change.

However, these debates have not yet engaged many people in Cornwall or the rest of England: nationalist noise isn’t numbers.

Let me now look at finance, where, I think, the bill is noticeably lacking.

Where will the money come from?
All governments need money; indeed, it is a foundation stone of governments and they cannot effectively exist without it. Section 38 of the bill deals with the funding of a devolved Cornwall; it is very brief — the section dealing with the remuneration of assembly members is twice as long — and says that the Cornish Assembly will get money for its work directly from UK taxpayers through the UK parliament. As far as I can see there is no provision which gives the assembly direct powers to levy or vary income tax in Cornwall.

There seem to be no other sources of money for the assembly other than the UK (and presumably the EU) though, as the assembly would also be a local council, perhaps it will levy, collect, and spend local council tax. I’m not at all clear about council tax as revenue for the assembly because the bill isn’t. There should be much more clarity on the entire financial issue but the basis does seem to be UK taxpayers collectively handing over money, presumably on the basis of the discredited Barnett formula, to the assembly to spend as it wishes.

A reliance on all UK taxpayers to pay for Cornish nationalist schemes undermines them. A bold and confident nationalism would turn away from supplication and look to the assembly’s work being wholly financed by tax raised only in Cornwall.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government
Arguments for decentralisation and devolution in England are usually cast in terms of sound governance, that is, more power for local people, more responsiveness to them and their concerns, greater efficiency, better outcomes for people, and the saving of money for taxpayers (as the arguments were for the unitary council though few agreed). A Cornish assembly, it is sometimes claimed without convincing evidence, will revive and develop the economy of Cornwall. No doubt the bill’s supporters advance such arguments for it but the popular emphasis of this bill seems to me to be Libdem nationalism-lite.

Commenting on the bill on his website Rogerson says, “Cornwall is a unique part of the country and this should be reflected in the way it is governed” and he equates Cornwall with Wales and Scotland. In as far as they seek to identify Cornwall as singularly different from the rest of England, those are straightforward and routine political nationalist arguments which remove Cornwall from a general debate about decentralisation within England and take us away from regional devolution for Cornwall as part of England to Cornwall as a separate country within the UK.

Rogerson claims that there is a will in Cornwall “to be recognised as its own nation”. That will is not universal: some people in Cornwall see Cornwall as its own nation, a country separate from England, and wish that recognised, some do not and see Cornwall as a county of England. I think that both views should be candidly acknowledged. Let us remember that explicit Cornish political nationalism has been consistently rejected by much the most voters in election after election and was again rejected by a decisive majority of voters in June’s local and European elections (see here). The last nationalist endeavour, the Cornish Fighting Fund, failed.

Rogerson dives into contested history to say that “constitutionally, Cornwall has the right to a level of self-government”. The feebleness of these words — it begins majestically as a constitutional right and peters out in timid “level of self-government” — does not convince. The Aristotle’s teeth post on this website challenges such attempts to resuscitate a medieval corpse.

People in Cornwall, including those who see themselves as Cornish, know that they can celebrate local culture and achievements and their Cornish identity without being a political nationalist. They know they can support local decision-making without being a nationalist and without wishing to see Cornwall separate from England.

MK says No
The bill does not satisfy the explicit nationalists. The Mebyon Kernow party (MK) has described the bill as “flawed” and insufficiently ambitious. It rightly points out that the bill mixes a country and a local authority; it would leave a rehashed Cornwall Council as a legislative assembly and dealing with refuse collection and routine planning applications. MK would like a bill that gives Cornwall the powers of the parliament of Scotland. That appears clear but perhaps there is an ambiguity: does MK mean the current position or do its aims stretch to the more ambitious independence apparently desired by Scottish nationalists? What is MK’s ultimate vision for Cornwall? The party should be clear with us about this.

Localism has drawbacks
I think an argument can be made for decentralisation to areas of England although there are difficulties in localism that decentralisers tend to ignore. I have outlined some of them here and add that decentralisation and localism in England, and especially the Tory sort, may turn out to be largely privatisation and cuts; the quality of local decision-making is variable; and there are reasonable concerns about the heightened vulnerability of localism to parochial prejudices — for example, think about affordable housing and nimbys.Tory decentralisation ideas include the localisation of benefit rates which will adversely affect the level of payments in Cornwall and I think the minimum wage is hardly safe with localisers as a wage that pays the same rate throughout England. There may even be localising challenges to paying national pay rates in places like Cornwall which would be damaging to people like teachers and nurses here. I have not come across any coherent explication of what should be left to locals and what should be reserved to central government.

The way to do it
It is in the initial context of a general and ongoing program of decentralisation throughout England that the case for Cornwall should be made not on the ‘fly-blown phylacteries’ of an unconvincing political nationalism. The bill will deservedly fail because it fractures the case for coherent decentralisation across England; and in centring its appeal on the particularist sentiments of Cornish political nationalism it excludes many in Cornwall who do not share them.

Indeed, I have indicated that there are several possible forms for local empowerment from full-blown independence outside the UK to an enhanced county or city status within England; and there is variety within those forms. There are different levels of financial independence possible too and different legislatures. Of course, not every area will wish to have the same degree or form of local self-government.

The bill has not gone to parliament with the full-hearted support of all the people of Cornwall. Better to inclusively explore with the whole people of Cornwall the pragmatic arguments for change and the range of options, including those options which keep Cornwall within England and those which take it out of England and perhaps out of the UK. When a consensus or majority view is clear, the case can be taken to parliament. This Libdem shortcut is unacceptable.

Parliamentary support
The Government of Cornwall bill was supported at its introductory first reading by the other Cornwall MPs (all Liberal Democrats) and two Scottish nationalists and one Welsh nationalist, along with a Labour MP (Hansard 14 July 2009 column 174).
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Strange women…Dennis responding to king Arthur’s talk about the Lady of the Lake and the sword Excalibur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Fly-blown phylacteries: Rosebery’s description of the views of some of the Liberal party, 1901

MK response to the bill

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STANNARY LAW OBSOLETE

Asked whether stannary law was still extant, the government’s reply yesterday was clear:

“The body of Stannary customary law has not been systematically repealed. It is likely however that such customary law has been superseded by modern legislation. There were also provisions in 19th century primary legislation relating to the stannaries, but these have largely been repealed” (Hansard 20 May 2009 column 1451W).

My interpretation is: in other words, in real life stannary law is obsolete — extinct, dead.

Posts on other similar Commons questions:

Duchy and stannary etc

Cornwall foreshore

Cornwall is part of England

I think that taken together the Commons answers show that the constitutional claims of Cornish nationalism are a house built on sand.

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CORNISH HISTORY IN SCHOOLS

Cornish nationalists advocate the teaching of Cornish history in schools in Cornwall. I’m going to look at what this might mean and some of the questions it throws up. As ever, nationalists differ, as other groups do, in their views about all these issues; there is no one Cornish nationalist view. Cornish nationalism and nationalist on my blog should always be understood as partitive.

I support the teaching of local history in schools; and, indeed, as many aspects of local particularisms as can be managed by a school timetable. Pupils should explore the local geography, economy, and language or dialect, for example. Cornish history in schools in Cornwall is not an exclusively Cornish nationalist issue: it is an educational issue that everyone can support. I should definitely like to see pupils in schools in Cornwall studying at an appropriate level the contended and complex history of Cornwall and that includes nationalist interpretations and arguments, though not those alone. However, history in schools is not ideological, it is not a mask for politics.

There are, of course, constraints on what a school can do: knowledge is vast, the curriculum crowded, and the school day and pupils’ attention are finite. School history cannot do everything and teachers have to select what to teach. Presently, as well as the history of the mandatory national curriculum of England, they do have the discretion to teach the history of their locality so there is no bar on a school in Cornwall teaching local history. This happens to an extent already with individual aspects of the history of Cornwall and with the sense of place project. A recent inspection report (October 2008) on Cape Cornwall secondary school at St Just commented favourably that “Pupils have a very good understanding of the culture of their local area, as shown in an assembly celebrating the unique nature and culture of West Cornwall” and added that the pupils “are starting to have a lot more contact with the local and world communities.” It is not only through history lessons that school pupils learn about Cornwall; and they are learning. Have a look at this post for positive work on the Cornish language in our schools.

I am now going to explore Cornish history in schools in terms of history skills, structure, content, and purpose.

History skills

Before looking at questions about the history of Cornwall in schools let me begin with general history skills, the basis of all history teaching and learning, what should be the foundation of all school history. History in schools should focus not only on facts, often contended and often incomplete, and on dramatic events, but also on the skills needed to judge and interpret history and its sources, and how to seek out sources. What we do not know, what we think is probable, and what we know are easily muddled in school history – as they are in life. Pupils need to know how to distinguish between facts, interpretations and opinions, and values and judgements; between likelihoods and wild surmises; to understand uncertainty and disagreements in knowledge; and the interplay of continuity and change. From this melange pupils should be encouraged to reach their own, often provisional, views. I believe the primary aim of education is to encourage pupils into rational independence.

Structure

What exactly does teaching the history of Cornwall in schools mean structurally?

Does it mean replacing the present mainstream history syllabus with one focused wholly on Cornwall rather than England and Britain and the world or does it mean including details of the history of Cornwall in the mainstream course or adding on a self-contained course on Cornish history? Mebyon Kernow’s policy of a “national curriculum for Cornwall” which would include “Cornish history” in all schools in Cornwall is doubly ambiguous: what is meant by the terms “national curriculum for Cornwall” and “Cornish history”?

I think too that we need clarity about the future of the present sense of place project. Does nationalism seek to abandon it or to build upon that work, using that approach, developing the project and spreading it to more and more schools in Cornwall? Or is something else sought, a history more sharply focused on nationalist issues and mandatory in all schools in Cornwall?

There is an unhelpful absence of details about structure.

Content and purpose

First, I think Cornish history for schools should not see the past as surer and more monochromatic than is warranted by the evidence; it should appreciate, as academic historians do, that there is, alongside the certainties, in the history of Cornwall complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty, and contended interpretations. In the Aristotle’s teeth posts on this blog I look at some of the off-beam and contended “Cornish history”.

Second, there is not one set of true facts open to one true interpretation that establishes a one true Cornish history.

Third, following on from these two points, how far would a Cornish history syllabus be monocentric or diverse? It would be unacceptable and a lost opportunity for education if, for example, we had only a tendentious and purposive Cornish nationalist take on the history in schools rather than a history recognising complexity, ambiguity, and a diversity of views, interpretations, and arguments. I think most people, whether nationalist or non-nationalist, believe there should be diversity.

However, diversity raises its own questions. This is an aspect of my argument in several posts: I believe that ‘Cornish’ does not necessarily imply nationalist and I reject nationalist attempts to appropriate Cornishness and the very word Cornish and give it a reductive nationalist definition. People in Cornwall have various outlooks and we should resist, in history as in everything else, language which characterises and dismisses non-nationalist views as non-Cornish and thus seeks to deny them indigenous legitimacy. There is no one “Cornish point of view” and nationalist arguments are not the only ‘Cornish’ arguments in any sphere.

Bearing that in mind, what does a diverse approach in Cornish history mean? Are we talking about side-by-side arguments presented as distinctly indigenous “Cornish” and foreign “English”? Is such ethnic labelling of arguments legitimate? I believe that pupils should be encouraged to focus on the merits of the reasoned arguments rather than to characterise them in polarised partisan terms such as cornocentric or anglocentric, inappropriate in schools at least.

Fourth, I think a basic aim of Cornish history in schools should be to help pupils unravel what is particular to Cornwall and what is common experience throughout England and the western world, pupils being encouraged to see the events in Cornwall not parochially but in their relevant wider contexts. A theme for this history should be the relationship between Cornwall and (the rest of) England – how it changes over time and how it shows continuity.

Fifth, there seems to be a hope and expectation among some that Cornish history in schools will in itself nationalise many pupils by leading them to claim a particular personal identity and a particular political view of the place of Cornwall out of England and thus over time create a nation of nationalists. What I think is important is that pupils have a genuinely diverse history curriculum, learn historical skills, and reach their own provisional conclusions, what I earlier referred to as rational independence. Although schools have an important role in socialising children, history in schools should not be ideologically purposive.

Of course mutatis mutandis these considerations apply to all local history in all schools in England. I certainly think pupils and students everywhere should learn about the history of their locality.

Identity

As for identity, which much exercises some strands of Cornish nationalism, out of this history the question of identities and changes in them would arise naturally and the conflicting ideas could be explored. I doubt if all pupils would see events in history identically or claim identical identities. Let me also here question the mistaken notion that one has to choose only one identity, Cornish or…

Clarify

It’s time for nationalists to clarify how they see the purpose, structure, and content of Cornish history in schools remembering that most pupils – and we are talking about history in schools not university or adult library books – are not at all interested in the unsure minutiae of historic politics; their interest is likely to be excited by the everyday life of people, their dreams and fears, their joys and despairs and miseries, their labours and leisure, and any school history must focus on those.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE CORNISH TODAY (1)

Look at these figures: more than four out of ten elderly people describe themselves as Cornish. About three in ten schoolchildren are described by their parents as Cornish. Whatever reservations there may be about the methodology and meaning of the figures, they are noticeable. (There is an update for the Cornish numbers post here post.)

Let us assume that the school figures, three in ten, represent the base of adults (people over eighteen) calling themselves Cornish. That is about 129 000 “Cornish electors.” I think this is the very lowest plausible number for adults who describe themselves as Cornish rather than anything else.

Now consider the public tests of the support for political nationalism. The vote for the nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow (MK), was 3 552 in the 2005 general election (1.4 percent of all the Cornwall votes). It was 9 421 in the 2005 county council elections (3.2 percent of all the Cornwall county council votes). In the 2007 district council elections MK took about 3.9 percent of the votes. It is clear that most people who regard themselves as Cornish do not support the Cornish nationalist party. MK has no MPs, no county councillors, and only a very few district and parish councillors.

The numbers signing the various nationalist petitions is decidedly few. The latest FCPNM recognition petition had 259 when I last looked; one earlier calling for an inquiry into Cornwall’s constitutional status ended this summer with only seventy one. I have commented here on the efforts to raise money for a legal case about FCPNM recognition.

There is a dissonance between the numbers describing themselves as Cornish and the numbers voting nationalist and supporting public declarations of nationalist views. Why?

No, I do not believe it is because Cornish people have been befogged, deceived, or otherwise misled about political nationalism and their identity. That seems to take a low view of the capacities of people to understand their world. I think it is because they have understood political nationalism and have freely chosen to reject it while still being Cornish.

Look at the inadequacies of political Cornish nationalism. Many of the policies of MK are naive and confused. Beyond the party the wider Cornish nationalist fudge about independence does not win support by ambiguity: separation from England? from the UK? or a regional assembly/parliament? a souped-up county council? more decisions taken locally? Cornish nationalism simply does not have any distinct and realistic answers to questions about the interplay of government, institutions, and individuals in the creation of opportunities and wealth, questions of social and economic justice like the distribution of wealth and services, and questions of everyday life such as the price of heating the home or filling the car, whether the job seekers allowance scheme works well, by how much we can realistically increase the minimum wage. Indeed, some nationalists seem to show little public dynamic interest in such everyday questions. “Constitutional” issues which engage nationalists have little appeal to people immersed in the problems and possibilities of life.

There is simply no sui generis Cornish nationalist philosophy of these real life things.

Thus, a rational rejection of political nationalism as irrelevant to life as lived today. Cornish people – people who would describe themselves as Cornish rather than only English or only anything else – do not see a necessary link between their being Cornish and celebrating that identity on the one hand and political nationalism on the other, a point that many nationalists apparently have difficulty with. I believe people do understand what it means to be Cornish in a new way which does not require old-fashioned political nationalism. Being Cornish does not mean being a nationalist.

I shall explore this modern Cornishness and identity in another post.

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FCPNM: Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, often abbreviated to FCNM

CORNISH FIGHTING FUND WAY OFF TARGET

Unless there’s a miracle, the histrionically named Cornish Fighting Fund (CFF) will fail. With eight weeks to go to the cut-off at the end of the year, it has raised less than a third of its target and is about £70 000 short. The most eager have already pledged. Who is left in any numbers?

There are about 430 000 adults in Cornwall. We still do not know how many of those (or people from elsewhere) have promised money to the Fund but, on the assumption that triumphs are trumpeted, I think it is likely to be an unimpressive number. Their identity and number should be public. Why doesn’t the CFF website publish the names and numbers of pledged supporters?

The coyness about the numbers and names of supporters contrasts unfavourably with the openness of, for example, the recent atheist bus fund raising where names and thus numbers of supporters (and amounts actually paid over) are published continually. A current online petition for formal recognition also gives names and the number of signatories, which makes the CFF site more puzzling. When I last looked at the petition site the number signing, including those from outside Cornwall, worked out as about one for every two thousand adults in Cornwall.

I suppose St Piran may yet appear disguised as a rich foreigner with ancestors from Tresomewhere, but frankly I don’t think anyone is going to hand over £70 000 to fight a court case with, at best, an uncertain outcome. I suppose nearly three thousand people might yet give twenty five pounds each but it’s unlikely, isn’t it? We shall see. Candidly, though I disgree with them, I think they have done well to have got this far.

What will happen when the project reaches 31 December and falls short? Pledgers will be understandably angry and disappointed and there will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth. An internecine insultfest-and-blamefest, which Cornish nationalism does so well, may break out. There is a risk that the failure to meet the target, assuming that is what happens and that meeting the target is a sine qua non for further action on FCPNM recognition, will be seen as damaging Cornish nationalism by showing the very public exposure of nationalism’s limited appeal. But negativity will not help; let us reflect on why it has failed.

No, it isn’t apathy or miseducation. It isn’t because Cornish people have been brainwashed or celtwashed. It is because people here – including people who describe themselves as Cornish rather than anything else and who value their being Cornish – do not see the world as the pledgers do; they consider that they have the recognition they desire and are confident in their identities.

Claims of suppression and forced assimilation and adjectival genocide are ludicrously wrong and most people in Cornwall can see that plainly.

People who see themselves as Cornish can stand up freely and say so without difficulty. They and anyone else in Cornwall can learn the language in all its varieties (most don’t), read nationalist books and tracts (most don’t), vote nationalist (most, oh, much the most, don’t), and enjoy Cornish events; they can freely be Cornish but they do not in numbers subscribe to the sillier nationalist ideas. They do not believe the tale that the duchy of Cornwall is an independent state established in 1337. They are not separatists wishing to break away from England. They do not see political nationalism as a practical force that will keep them secure, pay the bills, build the roads, and employ the doctors and teachers.

And they are right.

What it means to be Cornish has changed and I shall explore that in another post.

The real pro-Cornish agenda, as I have explained before, the real hope of all the people here, is about practical measures to enable people in Cornwall improve their daily life and working out a localism that maximises genuine democracy and that avoids difficulties like the post code lottery and narrow parochialism. Historical fantasies are not pro-Cornish; they are anti-Cornish because they risk diverting effort away from improving everyday life for all the people in Cornwall.

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Additamentum 4 November 2008
The question of recognising the Cornish under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorites (FCPNM but more usually FCNM) of the Council of Europe was raised in the Commons on two recent occasions: see Hansard 6 March 2007 columns 1871W-1872W and Hansard 3 November 2008 columns 116W-117W. Note in the minister’s 2007 reply: “The fact that some groups may not meet the definition of racial group from the Race Relations Act 1976 has not been a barrier to the UK’s many communities being able to maintain and celebrate their distinct identities.”

Previous post on the Cornish Fighting Fund Cornish minority recognition challenge: update

CORNWALL IS PART OF ENGLAND – AND STAYING PUT

The government has said it will not be undertaking a review of the constitutional status of Cornwall and will not be changing the present status of the county. The justice minister, Michael Wills, said that “Cornwall is an administrative county of England, electing MPs to the UK Parliament, and is subject to UK legislation. It has always been an integral part of the Union. The Government have no plans to alter the constitutional status of Cornwall.”

Read the details in Hansard 6 October 2008 column 154W.

Last year the government responded similarly (Hansard 6 March 2007 column 1892W and 29 March 2007 column 1673W) as I noted in this Cornwall today post.

There was a petition earlier this year on the Downing Street website urging a “thorough investigation into the distinctive constitutional status of Cornwall.” It had attracted seventy one signatures, a derisory number, at its closure on 30 July 2008.

To argue, as nationalism does, that Cornwall is really de iure a separate country from England and illegally incorporated in England, which is ultimately behind the issue of constitutional status, is unconvincing in 2008; to investigate the status is to take the nationalist argument seriously. The world is not flat and there is no good reason to spend public funds to investigate whether it is. Time moves on and Cornish nationalism will not succeed by beating an antique drum and wallowing in medieval niceties.

MEBYON KERNOW LOSING IN CORNWALL

There was a by-election in Truro on 25 September for a seat on the city council (a parish council). The seat was previously held by a Mebyon Kernow councillor.

The result of the by-election?

Liberal Democrat 49 percent of the votes cast, Conservative 31 percent, MK 12 percent, Labour 9 percent.

Mebyon Kernow lost the seat. Nearly nine tenths of voters rejected the party of Cornish nationalism.

MK does not hold any parliamentary or county council seats. It wins very few district and parish council seats and, as I said in this post (noting MK’s losing in a by-election in Camborne in August) MK is going nowhere, not even at lowly parish level, not even as a protest party. It is not so much the party for Cornwall as it describes itself but rather the party of very few in Cornwall. MK political Cornish nationalism is failing to persuade.

CORNISH MINORITY RECOGNITION CHALLENGE: UPDATE

Update 23 September 2008

The Cornish Fighting Fund appears to be in difficulty, being £74 000 short of its target. I say appears because there are a hundred days to go until the end of the year, the finish date the fund has set, and still time for some very large pledges or a tsunami of small support. However, in the last fortnight the fund has gone up by only £1820 as far as I can see.

To have got this far is an achievement though since we do not know how many have pledged it is impossible to tell whether we are looking at a myriad of small supporters or a few hefty ones or some combination. A myriad of support would be the more impressive scenario.

Original post 11 September 2008

Some Cornish nationalists have set up a fighting fund to explore the possibility of legal action against the UK government for its not recognising the Cornish under the national minorities scheme of the Council of Europe (FCPNM). What are being sought at present are pledges of money. As I understand it, if by the end of this year
£100 000 has not been pledged, the project will be aborted.

I’ll keep an eye on the total pledged. Bear in mind that some of the pledges probably won’t turn into actual money but money not pledged will probably be forthcoming if the project is successful.

At 11 September: £24 005 had been pledged, £5000 of it by an individual.

This is the money pledged. There is no public information about the number of people making pledges which would give an additional indication of support: is it two hundred or five thousand?

In another post I’ll talk about the identity recognition issues and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM).
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Later post 2 November 2008 Cornish Fighting Fund way off target

ATOMISING PEOPLE

This is a general follow-on from the post about national minorities. I shall look at the Cornish particularities and claims in a further post.

The government has got itself in a mess about population groups in the UK: racial, national, ethnic, religious, linguistic, whatever. It is rightly keen to encourage mutual public respect among the different groups that make up the people of Britain and to ensure that everyone gets equal access to public services.

The chosen instruments for ensuring respect and equality began with the 1976 Race Relations Act; subsequent legislation and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM) have provided the arrangements within which ensurance and compliance works. And this is where the current mess shows.

At present some groups are fully recognised in race law or by the government under the FCPNM and get support and also may get funding for activities that celebrate and encourage their distinctiveness and public service participation; other groups are not and do not. The Welsh and Ulster Scots and Gipsies qualify, the Cornish don’t. The Jews and Sikhs do, the Muslims don’t. It is difficult to see any real-life coherence in this.

The current issue among Cornish nationalists is recognition under the FCPNM which the British government refuses to grant. There are other issues as well; for example, a tick-box for the 2011 census (some groups will get one; others, probably including the Cornish, won’t).

Dissatisfaction is what results when you encourage people to identify themselves in numerous subgroups. Forms do not have enough space to include everyone so some get missed off or have to write themselves in and grievance ensues. Even I was irritated when a form presented to me did not include the group which if pushed hard I would assign myself to but did include other groups that I do not include myself in.

The only way out of this mess is to include everyone or to exclude everyone.

There is another aspect which concerns me. People are pushed into assigning themselves to one group and not several – the school ethnic census does not enable one easily to identify one’s child as adjectival Cornish and adjectival English and adjectival British or whatever; the national census does not make multiple identity easy to assert and be recognised within its sections either. Mono-ethnicity, indeed mono-categorisation generally, is encouraged as the norm though I think many people see themselves as more diverse than that. For example, many people see themselves as “Christian but” or “ex-Muslim”; the census form does not offer those and resources are assigned on the coarse and misleading ethnic and religious (and soon, national) categorisation the form demands.

I don’t wish to overdo this next point but the default assumption of simplistic monolithic group identity can encourage people or a group of people to see themselves as significantly different from their neighbours, it can lead to overemphasis on perceived ethnic and other differences, and frankly the history of mankind is dispiriting about the consequences of perceived difference. At bottom, emphasising difference is unlikely to promote social cohesion.

I think mono-ethnicity is what the Cornish nationalists (and the English and other nationalists) seem to be about. Choose: Cornish or English. I think they are wrong and, if we are to continue officially recording group identities – and while I see the point of collecting the data, I increasingly doubt that this is the best way to be just – I would like to see the Cornish nationalists widen their views to include multiple identities, Cornish and English, if that is how people see themselves. That is genuine pluralism.

Yes, in the present system the Cornats have a good point about inclusion under the FCPNM of those who see themselves as Cornish and I suspect that the government are rationally but unfairly trying to avoid expenditure, wide religious inclusion, and the perceived constitutional issue that may well ignite if the Cornish are recognised under the FCPNM. Nevertheless, one in, all in.

However, I come back to my central doubt which I repeated at the “egg” end of this post . Is atomising British people into endless subgroups the best way forward? Can we not celebrate our identities, our different ways and beliefs, and show mutual respect, and ensure everyone gets fair access to services without the present divisive official grotesqueries? It is time to rethink the atomising and emphasise our commonalities.