Kernewek not English

The UK census for 2001 recorded over 37,000 people of Cornish identity. On this census to claim Cornish identity you had to deny being British, by crossing out the British option, and then writing in Cornish in the others box. Additionally the decision to collect information on Cornish identity was extremely badly publicised.

How many more would have described themselves as Cornish if you did not have to deny being British or if there had been a Cornish tick box? How many people knew that it was an option? How many ticked British but feel themselves Cornish British?

The UK government is two years overdue on its report back to the Council of Europe concerning the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities! Why?

This is a charter that recognises the existence of groups like the Welsh, Scots, Irish travellers etc. Many Cornish groups have also been campaigning for inclusion.

What could be the hold up? There are no issues, apart from the Cornish question, that could be causing a problem, and why should the recognition of Cornish ethnicity cause such a huge fuss?

The UK government has already partially recognised the Cornish people; along with the 2001 census the Cornish Schools survey recorded Cornish ethnicity and our language is recognised by the EU and UK. Why not go the whole way and include us under the treaty, it would ensure further protection for our culture, language and identity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_National_Minorities

The Cornish thing again.

Don't you ever give it a rest?

"The UK census for 2001 recorded over 37,000 people of Cornish identity"

37,000? Is that it?

There are 1,434,900 Lancastrians, 5,000,000 Yorkshireman (around the same as the whole of Scotland), 8 million in Greater London, 816,000 in Norfolk, 1.6 million in Kent, and 620,000 in Oxfordshire.

I know of at least one fool in Bolton. It has little to do with numbers. Its slightly more complicated and needs a deeper discussion and this is not the place for it.

21. Although our own Parliament was suspended in the 18th Century, we still have Independent Sovereign Rights that are fixed in law.

The Cornish are a Celtic ethnic group and nation of the southwest of Great Britain. We have our own lesser used Celtic language (Cornish), sports, festivals, cuisine, music, dance, history and identity. Cornwall also has a distinct constitutional history as a Duchy with an autonomous stannary parliament. This Celtic Cornish identity was recognised and described in the April 2006 edition of National Geographic.

The results from the 2001 UK population census show over thirty seven thousand people hold a Cornish identity instead of English or British. On this census, to claim to be Cornish, you had to deny being British, by crossing out the British option and then write Cornish in the others box. Additionally the decision to collect information on Cornish identity was extremely badly publicised.
Expressions of Cornish identity can be found in everything, from a campaign for an international Cornish sports team (like Scotland England and Wales) - http://home.btconnect.com/graham-hart/ccga.htm - through the campaign for a disestablished church of Cornwall - http://www.freethespirit.org.uk/indexr.htm - to the campaign for devolved autonomous government - http://www.cornishassembly.org/.

How many more would have described themselves as Cornish if they did not have to deny being British or if there had been a Cornish tick box? How many people knew that it was an option? How many ticked British but feel themselves to be Cornish British?

Cornwall Council’s Feb 2003 MORI Poll showed 55% in favour of a democratically-elected, fully-devolved regional assembly for Cornwall, (this was an increase from 46% in favour in a 2002 poll). Many English and other nationalities who have settled in Cornwall wish to see an assembly as some of these people identify closely with Cornwall and actually feel ‘Cornish’. London, Wales and Scotland have devolved assemblies and are still part of the United Kingdom as well as the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey - why not Cornwall ? The Cornish Assembly petition was signed by 50,000 people, which is the largest expression of popular support for devolved power in the whole of the United Kingdom and possibly Europe.

In July 2000 Mebyon Kernow launched the Declaration for a Cornish Assembly campaign which some three months later led to the creation of The Cornish Constitutional Convention with the objective of establishing a devolved Assembly for Cornwall. In less than two years, it had won the support of over 50,000 people, which equates to more than 10% of the Cornish electorate. A delegation led by the West Cornwall Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George and representatives of the Cornish Constitutional Convention (Bert Biscoe, Richard Ford, Dick Cole, David Fieldsend and Andrew Climo Thompson) presented 50,000 declarations to 10 Downing Street on Wednesday 12th December 2001 calling for a Cornish Assembly. This was an opportunity to give the people of Cornwall the chance to demand greater control over their own future.

A recommendation by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the ‘concept of nation’ has been backed by the European Parliament regional and minority language Intergroup.

The PACE recommendation stated that, “Everyone should be free to define themselves as a member of a cultural “nation”, irrespective of their citizenship”. In response, the Intergroup commented that ‘Council of Europe member states should avoid defining themselves in exclusively ethnic terms, and should do their utmost to help their minorities, a source of enrichment, to flourish’. Today, both the French and the British Governments still deny people from some of the Celtic countries to legally describe themselves in terms of their Celtic national identities in all areas of life. Intergroup leader Mr Csaba Tabajdi, Member of the European Parliament, said that, this recommendation is of utter importance, representing a paradigm change in the protection of minorities in Europe. It contains a new, elaborate concept of nation.

The recommendation states that: The term “nation” is deeply rooted in peoples, culture and history and incorporates fundamental elements of their identity. “It is also closely linked to political ideologies, which have exploited it and adulterated its original meaning. Furthermore, in view of the diversity of languages spoken in European countries, a concept such as nation is quite simply not translatable in many countries where, at best, only rough translations are to be found in certain national languages. Full text of the recommendation: http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta06/EREC1735.htm

The UK government has so far failed to recognise the Cornish people under the Council of Europe’s framework convention for the protection of national minorities.

The UK government has failed to give the people of Cornwall the democratic referendum on greater autonomy and a devolved assembly that they have shown a demand for.

Catalyst Magazine from the Council of Racial Equality: http://www.catalystmagazine.org/Default.aspx.LocID-0hgnew0lx.RefLocID-0hg01b001006009.htm?sksearchtext=Cornish

The Cornish and the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities http://www.geecee.co.uk/CNMR/

An Burow, the Cornish Language News Website
http://www.cornish-language-news.org/

An Daras - Cornwall’s distinctive Culture at your fingertips
http://www.an-daras.com/

Real Cornwall Site with sections on Food & Drink, People & Places, Sports & Games and Arts & Media
http://www.realcornwall.net/

The Cornish: A Neglected Nation? from the BBC by Mark Stoyle
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/cornish_nation_01.shtml

Tyr-Gwyr-Gweryn, Cornish history, identity and constitution.
http://www.kernowtgg.co.uk/

The Cornish Stannary Parliament, a Cornish civil rights group
http://cornishstannaryparliament.org/

Mebyon Kernow
http://www.mebyonkernow.org/Public/Stories/89-1.shtml

Eurominority
http://www.eurominority.org/version/eng/

Nationality exists in the minds of men, its only conceivable habitat. Outside men’s minds there can be no nationality, because nationality is a manner of looking at oneself not an entity an sich. Common sense is able to detect it, and the only human discipline that can describe and analyse it is psychology. This awareness, this sense of nationality, this national sentiment, is more than a characteristic of a nation. It is nationhood itself.

The Cornish Stannary Parliament will be at Truro Crown Court on January 2nd 2007 at 2pm to present the case for a statutory guarantee of equality before the law in all official decisions!

Your support is most welcome!

See also http://www.cornishstannaryparliament.org/

The details are here: http://cornishstannaryparliament.co.uk//resources//article.php?story=20061228180913245

I've seen you post exactly the same thing on Irish, English and Scottish political forums in the past week.

And, if you remember, I said 'Even as a part of England Cornwall is the poorest English county. So how will Cornwall fare as an independent "nation"? '

To give your nation a proper economy and to make your few thousand citizens rich you'll have to have a proper industry - maybe you'll have to bring back tin mining or you export hundreds of tons of Cornish clotted cream around the world each year. Or maybe do what the Scots do and don't have any successful industries but just survive off English subsidies.

And then when England becomes independent the Cornish, and the Scots too, wouldn't even have English subsidies to survive on. It will be then be a struggle for you. Unless you both then do what the irish do - become rich from EU subsidies. Unlike the English, who make themselves rich by working hard and having a strong economy, the Irish have only become rich thanks to the EU taxpayer. Maybe you Cornish could do what the Irish have done.

<<There are 1,434,900 Lancastrians, 5,000,000 Yorkshiremen (around the same as the whole of Scotland), 8 million in Greater London, 816,000 in Norfolk, 1.6 million in Kent, and 620,000 in Oxfordshire.>>

The difference being that all those you have mentioned above identify as English. The Cornish identify as being Cornish.

http://www.cornishnotenglish.com/
http://www.pledgebank.com/Cornish-Tick-Box

Here's a radical thought: if a paltry 37,000 people can make Cornwall a "nation," why can't the several million people of East Indian descent in the UK become a "nation"?

For that matter, there must surely be more than 37,000 people of Polish descent in the UK. How about it if they - and the more recent influx of Poles - get to be a "nation"? "Little Poland" or perhaps "Nowa Polska"?

And what about people of Caribbean descent? There's just got to be more than 37,000 of them. Why can't they be a "nation" too?

I think the relatively small number that registered as Kernewek on the last census was due to confusion over census codes, the fact that you had to first deny being British, (psychologically designed to elict a negative response first before one's own positive identicication could be made), the lack of a clear tick box and people being unaware of the new codes. The Kernewek are regarded as an indigenous ethnic minority and nation of these Isles whose historic home is Kernow, whereas most non-indigenous ethnic minorities who have arrived relatively recently could be regarded as diasporas of their home nations. No reason why they shouldn't be included on the next UK 2011 census though if they contact the ONS !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_2001_Ethnic_Codes

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/press_release/letters/Telegraph_Mail_13_15Mar06.asp

"The Cornish Stannary Parliament will be at Truro Crown Court on January 2nd 2007 at 2pm to present the case for a statutory guarantee of equality before the law in all official decisions!"

Aren't all Cornishmen British citizens?

Doesn't that ipso facto give them equality before the law with all other British citizens?

It would seem you're asking for something more than simply equality here...

The new 2006 Equality Act does not contain a provision for 'equality before the law'. If British subjects do benefit from the principle of equality before the law, why on Earth does this statute not make it perfectly clear that it really does exist, so there can be no doubt in the public's and legal profession's mind, and dispel any possible myth that it is just an illusory concept? The absence of this important principle in the legal system, despite international treaty obligations to provide it, means that equality is a subjective, rather than an objective, concept in the UK.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/St-Pirans-Day/

This is the Cornish Dilemma - until a few centuries ago Cornwall existed on English maps as a separate and distinct country to England. Royalty refered to themselves as being 'rulers of England and Cornwall'. A Greek traveller in 300BC - recorded that the people of Cornwall were an evolved and civilised tin mining community trading tin with other countries, 800 years before the Anglo-Saxons first set foot in Britain. In 1337 the 'Nation' of Cornwall was made a royal Duchy to provide an income to the Heir to the throne, Cornwall became an extra-territorial region of Britain ruled by the Duke's of Cornwall. Kernow is a unique nation with it's own language, culture, history and heritage that has little in common with it's English neighbours. Today there is a growing Cornish movement rediscovering the real truth about England's involvement in Cornwall's past, and more importantly, it's future. Many questions are being ignored by the UK government to the point that the Security of State has, in 2007, resorted to telling lies to avoid Cornwall being recognised as a National Minority of Britain.

http://thisisnotengland.co.uk/forum/index.php

The 1969-71 Killbrandon Report into the British constitution states that, " when referring to Cornwall, official sources should cite the Duchy". This was in recognition of it's constitutional position.
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The fact that Cornwall is a duchy doesn't mean that it's not a part of England.

Lancaster is a duchy, and so is Edinburgh.