Mebyon Kernow - History

History

MK was founded as a pressure group on 6 January 1951 at a meeting held in Redruth. Helena Charles was elected the organisation's first chair. At the first meeting, MK adopted the following objectives:

1. To study local conditions and attempt to remedy any that may be prejudicial to the best interests of Cornwall by the creation of public opinion or other means.
2. To foster the Cornish Language and Literature.
3. To encourage the study of Cornish history from a Cornish point of view.
4. By self knowledge to further the acceptance of the idea of the Celtic character of Cornwall, one of the six Celtic nations.
5. To publish pamphlets, broadsheets, articles and letters in the Press whenever possible, putting forward the foregoing aims.
6. To arrange concerts and entertainments with a Cornish-Celtic flavour through which these aims can be further advanced.
7. To cooperate with all societies concerned with preserving the character of Cornwall.

By September 1951 they had officially come to a stance of supporting self-government for Cornwall, in what they hoped at the time would be a federal United Kingdom. MK won its first seat at local level on the Redruth-Camborne Urban Council in 1953. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, MK was in essence a political pressure group rather than a true political party, with members being able to join other political parties as well. However, by the 1970s the group developed into a more coherent and unified organisation. During this decade, MK began contesting Westminster parliamentary seats as well as local government ones. On 28 May 1975 James Whetter left MK to form the Cornish Nationalist Party which was campaigning for full Cornish independence.

They currently describe their philosophy as based on being: "Cornish, Green, Left of Centre, Decentralist." Mebyon Kernow is a member of the European Free Alliance and although it did not contest European Parliament elections in 2004 or 1999, it has six candidates for the 2009 Euro elections. The party has close links with Plaid Cymru (their partner in the EFA) including a twinning arrangement with Plaid's Blaenau Gwent branch, and to a lesser extent with the SNP.

Daphne du Maurier, the well known novelist, was at one point a member of Mebyon Kernow, as was Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP; he still remains sympathetic to many Cornish issues, but is no longer a member of the political party.

MK had an electoral partnership with the Greens in the 2005 Westminster elections. The party did not contest the St Ives constituency to make room for the Green Party candidate and, in return, the Greens did not stand against MK in any of the other four Cornish constituencies. MK has announced it will contest every seat in Cornwall at the next general election.

In 2009, three Mebyon Kernow candidates were elected to the newly formed Cornwall Council. Andrew Long for Callington, Stuart Cullimore for Camborne south and Dick Cole was elected to represent St Enoder. In 2010 an independent councillor, Neil Plummer, joined the MK group.

In August 2008 MK deputy leader, Conan Jenkin, expressed Mebyon Kernow's support for a proposed legal challenge by Cornwall 2000 over the UK Government's exclusion of the Cornish from the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Cornwall 2000 need to show that they have exhausted all domestic legal avenues by having the case summarily dismissed by the High Court, the Appeal Court and the House of Lords, before the case can be put to the European Court of Human Rights. Mebyon Kernow have requested the support of all of its members for this legal action. However the fund failed to meet the required target of £100,000 by the end of December 2008, having received just over £33,000 in pledges, and the plan was abandoned.

In 2011 councillor Andrew Long was invited to visit the Estonian Parliament by Aare Heinvee MP of the Reformierakond (Reform Party). He said that it was "a great opportunity to see how a small nation can run its own affairs while being an equal and active part of a wider Europe."