As we approach the tenth anniversary of the recognition of the Cornish as a national minority, MK leader Cllr Dick Cole critiques what has actually happened over the last decade.

On 24th April 2014, the UK Government announced that the Cornish would be recognised through the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. 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.”

This was a landmark moment for our nation. The Framework Convention is a significant international treaty and sets out numerous obligations. These include support for language and culture, education and the media, the greater visibility of national minorities in public life, the protection of historic territories, more opportunities on the international stage, and so much more.

When the announcement was made in 2014, David Cameron stated that the United Kingdom was “stronger” when its different regional identities were recognised. The former Prime Minister told the media that “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.”

At this point, I would like to pay tribute to the large number of people in Cornwall – of all political shades – who have worked hard to turn “recognition” into tangible benefits for Cornwall and the Cornish. In particular, I would also like to acknowledge that many at the unitary authority – both councillors and staff – have consistently made the case for Cornish identity, culture and language.

Sadly, anticipated changes in public policy have not materialised over the last ten years, because the UK Government and numerous public bodies have failed to meet their responsibilities. In particular, a decade of inaction and obfuscation from the Westminster establishment represents a manifest failure to treat the Cornish in the same manner as the “Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.”

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 ten years, as we refresh our campaigns going forward.

LACK OF PARITY WITH NORTHERN IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES

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 MK 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 (two seats).

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, as reported in Cornish Nation no 92, 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. Central government and its agencies have decided to drag Cornwall’s Coast Path into an England Coast Path (see Cornish Nation no 92). And 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.

NO MEANINGFUL DEVOLUTION FOR CORNWALL

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. The Government continues to administer Cornwall as an English county, 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.

The weakness of Cornwall’s position was shown during the COVID crisis from 2020 onwards. The devolved administrations made their own decisions about what was best for their nations, whereas for Cornwall, key decisions were made in Westminster and the Local Resilience Forum covered Cornwall and the English county of Devon!

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 MK 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 been revised on a number of occasions and has been instrumental to our campaigns for greater powers for Cornwall.

But discussions around “devolution” for Cornwall have otherwise been constrained by central government’s focus on limited and feeble accommodations between the centre and “English” local government. The deals agreed for Cornwall in 2015 and 2023, in my opinion, do not even merit the term “devolution.”

Instead of securing significant powers as in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, we have been unacceptably straitjacketed into the same discourse as a range of English counties or localities including Buckinghamshire, Devon, Norfolk, the Sheffield city region, Suffolk, Surrey, Tees Valley, Warwickshire, York and North Yorkshire.

Linked to this, there is no minister for Cornwall as there are Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with associated governmental office set-ups. And no progress has been towards institutions for Cornwall. We do not, for example, have a Cornish equivalent of a heritage organisation such as Cadw in Wales, or an environmental body such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in Scotland, or an Office of Identity and Cultural Expression as planned for Northern Ireland.

INADEQUATE SUPPORT FOR THE CORNISH LANGUAGE

As Cornwall has not achieved meaningful devolution, the obligations within the Framework Convention and the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (relevant from November 2002 onwards), remain the responsibility of the UK Government.

The state has an undeniable obligation to support and fund Cornwall’s distinct identity and culture, including the language, and activists were rightly outraged when, less than two years after recognition, the UK Government ended its annual funding of £150,000 per annum for Cornish.

A five year programme of funding had actually been in the 2015 “devolution deal” agreed between the UK Government and Cornwall Council, but this was removed just before the document was finalised. Politicians in Cornwall were “reassured” by the officials in the Department for Communities and Local Government that this was a technical matter” and “that another funding route would be identified.” This never happened.

Dedicated volunteers in a range of language groups continue to do their utmost to promote Cornish, while Cornwall Council has also worked to develop an infrastructure for the language. In addition, to producing a Cornish Language Strategy, it developed the Go Cornish initiative with Golden Tree, taking the language into a range of schools. But this is all being undermined by a lack of financial and other support from the Government.

A one-off payment of £200,000 to support Cornish culture, with three-quarters of the money earmarked for the language, was secured in 2019, when a government minister, Lord Bourne, attended a National Minority Summit in Falmouth organised by Cornwall Council (see left). A former member of the National Assembly of Wales, he spoke about Cornwall’s rich history and distinctive identity, and how “we should support the Cornish language and help it flourish for generations to come.” Further progress towards more meaningful long-term funding of the Cornish language did not happen, not least because the sympathetic minister resigned from Boris Johnson’s government.

A further £500,000 was secured as part of the level 2 “devolution deal,” much of which will be spent on the language, but it is another one-off grant that does not allow those in the sector to develop strategic plans to grow and prosper.

The lack of central government investment continues to be flagged by the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee. In their most recent opinion, they called for “sufficient, regular, earmarked baseline funding for the support and the promotion of Cornish language and culture,” along with a priority recommendation for central government to include Cornish “in the curriculum” and to “adequately fund Cornish organisations providing minority language education, teacher training or developing quality educational materials in Cornish.”

Ministers and officials from the UK Government and MPs have yet to address these important challenges, though staff at the unitary authority and partners are working on a wide-ranging Cornish curriculum, which can be an integral part of the educational offer at schools across Cornwall in the future.

It also needs to be pointed out that Cornish is only recognised through Part II of the European Charter, whereas the other Celtic Languages are recognised through the much more encompassing and extensive Part III. Cornwall Council and language activists are building the case for inclusion within Part III, though there has been little or no support from central government as yet.

And very significantly, Cornish is the only Celtic language in the United Kingdom without safeguards embedded in domestic law. The first Welsh Language Act was passed in 1967 and a second one in 1993, while further legislation has been passed by the National Assembly of Wales / Welsh Parliament. The Scottish Gaelic Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2005, while the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act, covering both Irish and Ulster Scots, completed its passage through parliamentary process in 2023.

Indeed, the contrast with Northern Ireland is stark. The Cornish language does not, for example, benefit from similar levels of core funding and initiatives similar to the Investment Fund agreed for the Irish language in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen’s Irish Language and Ulster Scots Broadcast Funds.

LACK OF SUPPORT FOR BROADCASTING IN AND FOR CORNWALL

Unlike the other Celtic nations, there is no national television or radio provision for Cornwall. In terms of television news coverage, Cornwall is lost within BBC SW or ITV “Westcountry” constructs, while BBC Radio Cornwall is a local station in an increasingly weak position in the face of ongoing cuts, while much wider content about Cornwall has been externally created.

There is a positive that, in recent years, there has been a significant uplift in the amount of home-grown audio-visual and other content being produced in Cornwall and, this is being linked to a powerful campaign for public service broadcasting in and for Cornwall. In 2019, the unitary authority commissioned Denzil Monk, a film maker and a lecturer in film at the School of Film and Television at Falmouth University, to produce a report “Kas rag media gonis poblek Kernewek / A case for Cornish public service media.” Linked to this, Screen Cornwall through its managing director, Laura Giles, and others, continue to make representations to central government.

Some progress has been made and four Cornish language short films have made it onto the BBC iPlayer. But the magnitude of the task is shown by the BBC Charter, agreed in 2016. This document includes a commit-ment to broadcasting in the “regional and minority languages of the United Kingdom,” but ridiculously includes a definition of such languages as “Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Ulster Scots.”

In 2022, the UK Government published a White Paper titled: “Up Next: The Government’s vision for the broadcasting sector.” It was silent on the request for public service broadcasting for Cornwall while, in the section on regional and minority languages, the Cornish language was once again ignored. Those languages mentioned in the document mirrored those in the BBC Charter.

The Broadcasting Bill did not proceed, but a Media Bill is presently going through the parliamentary system. Again, this is silent on the request for public service broadcasting for Cornwall but finally – more than 20 years after the language was first covered by the European Charter for Regional and Minority – Cornish is listed as one of the “regional and minority languages” referenced for an emerging public service remit for television.

This is indeed to be welcomed, though there is still a lack of clarity to what extent the Media Bill will underpin progress towards a Cornish Public Sector Media.

THE CORNISH DENIED A TICK-BOX ON THE 2021 CENSUS

One of the most prominent and highly symbolic campaigns for the rights of Cornish people over the last ten years was that to secure a tick-box on the 2021 census. The initial consultation on the content of the forms in 2016 did not propose a tick-box for the Cornish.

We made a strong case to both the Office of National Statistics and the UK Government, arguing that it would be ridiculous to provide a tick-box facility for three of the UK’s four national minorities (Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh) but to deny the opportunity to the fourth who would be “othered” and forced to “write-in” their nationality.

One of the ridiculous arguments deployed against a Cornish tick-box was that the case was not strong enough because the need was “localised.” A letter from a Government Minister even stated that “the ONS did not receive any requests for this information from any national organisations outside of Cornwall … this is in contrast to the decision to include a Welsh national identity tick-box in the 2011 Census, where there was evidence of wider user need.”

We challenged this statement and requested information from the ONS about which “national organisations” outside of Wales requested a Welsh tick-box, but no details were ever forthcoming. Requests for a Welsh tick-box in 2011 were led by the-then National Assembly (the principal democratic institution for Wales) just as Cornwall Council (presently the primary democratic institution for our nation) were to the fore of calls for a Cornish tick-box in 2021.

This example really show the lack of respect afforded to Cornwall and the Cornish, when compared to the other Celtic nations of the UK, is founded on the lack of a devolved administration in Cornwall.

The refusal of the OSN to promote a Cornish tick-box means that other government agencies and public bodies use this as a justification to exclude the Cornish from their data collection.

CONCLUSION

At the start of this article, I pointed out that there had been a manifest failure from the Westminster establishment to meet their obligations and keep their promise to treat the Cornish in the same manner as the “Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.” This is shamefully the present reality, as shown by the many  failings that I have outlined above.

But we must not let such inaction discourage us. We should be very proud of our collective efforts – whether that is through Mebyon Kernow, the unitary authority, various language and cultural organisations, or campaign groups – and we must never stop striving to achieve parity for Cornwall and the  Cornish national minority.