Cornish Assembly - Overview

Overview

Post Second World War Cornwall became increasingly linked with Devon in an economic, political and statistical sense (more recently this process had become known as "Devonwall-isation"). However, in the face mounting evidence that Cornwall's economic plight was deepening, Cornwall achieved NUTS2 status, allowing Cornwall's issues to become visible.

In 1998 Cornwall was recognised by the UK Government as having "distinct cultural and historical factors reflecting a Celtic background", thus enhancing the case for treating Cornwall as a special case in a regional, economic and cultural sense, and separate from Devon. Also after the 1997 general election the Liberal Democrats finally withdrew their support for the 'devonwall' process as they agreed with other pressure groups and the nationalist party Mebyon Kernow that it undermined Cornwall's claims to European Objective One funding.

Proposals for some form of devolved Assembly for Cornwall are in fact, long standing. As long ago as 1970, J.C. Banks wrote "Federal Britain?", which included a discussion on the Cornish position.

During the 1990s the pace of debate gathered parallel to discussions relating to National Minority status for the Cornish under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and recognition for the Cornish language within the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (the latter campaign being subsequently successful).

In July 2000 Mebyon Kernow issued the "Declaration for a Cornish Assembly", which said:

"Cornwall is a distinct region. It has a clearly defined economic, administrative and social profile. Cornwall's unique identity reflects its Celtic character, culture and environment. We declare that the people of Cornwall will be best served in their future governance by a Cornish regional assembly. We therefore commit ourselves to setting up the Cornish Constitutional Convention with the intention of achieving a devolved Cornish Assembly - Senedh Kernow."

Three months later the Cornish Constitutional Convention (which had been meeting for some time as an informal discussion group) held its first open meeting to promote the objective of establishing a devolved Assembly. In less than two years, it had attracted the signatures of over 50,000 people on a petition calling for a referendum on a Cornish Assembly, which is a little over 10% of the total Cornish electorate. A delegation led by the West Cornwall Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George and representatives of the Convention (, Richard Ford, Dick Cole, David Fieldsend and Andrew Climo) presented the declaration to 10 Downing Street on Wednesday 12 December 2001.

Currently the South West Regional Development Agency has control over areas such as economic development, housing and strategic planning, although it is now being woundup. The Liberal Democrats who have substantial support in the area, have referred to the Agency as "undemocratic and unaccountable

In 2004 people in North East England overwhelmingly voted no (78%) on a referendum to form a directly elected North East Assembly of the type that is proposed by Cornish nationalists. Had this assembly been formed government plans were to hold further votes in other regions including the south west. Following the no vote on the assembly then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott stated that his plans for regional devolution had been roundly defeated and the conservative spokesman for the regions Bernard Jenkin said "The whole idea of regional government has been blown out of the water by this vote" and indeed no further moves of the type have been made by the government since.