Political party in Cornwall
Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall (, MK; Cornish for "Sons of Cornwall") is a Cornish nationalist, centre-left political party in Cornwall, in southwestern Britain. It currently has five elected councillors on Cornwall Council, and several town and parish councillors across Cornwall.
Influenced by the growth of Cornish nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century, Mebyon Kernow formed as a pressure group in 1951. Helena Charles was its first chair, while the novelist Daphne du Maurier was another early member. In 1953 Charles won a seat on a local council, but lost it in 1955. Support for MK grew in the 1960s in opposition to growing migration into Cornwall from parts of England. In the 1970s, MK became a fully-fledged political party, and since then it has fielded candidates in elections to the House of Commons and the European Parliament, as well as local government in Cornwall. Infighting during the 1980s decimated the party but it revived in the 1990s.
Ideologically positioned on the centre-left of British politics, the central tenet of Mebyon Kernow's platform is Cornish nationalism. It emphasises a distinct Cornish identity, including the Cornish language and elements of Cornish culture. It campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly. Economically, it is social democratic, calling for continued public ownership of education and healthcare and the renationalisation of railways. It also calls for greater environmental protection and continued UK membership of the European Union.
The party is a member of the European Free Alliance and has close links with Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party and the Breton Democratic Union.
Several former Cornish MPs have been supporters of MK, including Andrew George (Liberal Democrat), Peter Bessell (Liberal Party), John Pardoe (Liberal Party), David Mudd (Conservative), and David Penhaligon (Liberal Party). George was himself a member of MK in his youth.
History.
Founding (1950s).
In the half-century preceding its foundation, Cornish identity had been strengthened by the Celtic Revival, especially by the revival of the Cornish language. Cornish politics was dominated by the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, with the Labour Party a distant third in the Duchy, in part because of Cornwall's declining tin-mining industry. Both the Liberal Party and the Labour Party had courted Cornish nationalism in their local campaigns, with both parties portraying "a distinctly Cornish image"; in turn, this meant that Cornish nationalism was from its inception associated with centre-left politics. Many of MK's initial supporters came from the Liberal Party, which had endorsed Home Rule for Ireland. Early members of MK cited their absence from Cornwall during their university years and the war as instrumental in the formation of their Cornish identity. A catalyst for the party's foundation was the Celtic Congress of 1950, held at the Royal Institution of Cornwall in Truro, which facilitated the exchange of ideas between Cornish nationalists and other Celtic groups.
MK was founded as a pressure group on 6 January 1951. At the party's inaugural meeting, held at the Oates Temperance Hotel in Redruth, thirteen people were present and a further seven sent their apologies. Helena Charles was elected as the organisation's first chair. MK adopted the following objectives:
By September 1951 they had officially come to a stance of supporting self-government for Cornwall, when the fourth objective was replaced with: "To further the acceptance of the Celtic character of Cornwall and its right to self-government in domestic affairs in a Federated United Kingdom."
In its early years, MK engaged in cultural activities, such as producing Cornish calendars and sending a birthday prayer in Cornish to the Duke of Cornwall. It highlighted the high proportion of executives in local government which were not Cornish and campaigned against inward migration to Cornwall from the rest of the United Kingdom. From 1952, the party was supported by "New Cornwall", a magazine which was edited by Charles until 1956. MK's agenda received support from the Liberal Party, whose candidates endorsed Home Rule for Cornwall. MK won its first seat in local government in 1953, when Charles won a seat on Redruth-Camborne Urban District Council, under the slogan of 'A Square Deal for the Cornish'. Charles lost her seat in 1955.
Following infighting between senior members who were frustrated at her radical separatism, in contrast to the passive culturalism of the broader Cultural nationalist movement, and following frustration at the party's dispersed and unenthusiastic membership, Charles resigned as Chairman of MK in 1956. Charles was replaced by Major Cecil Beer, a former civil servant who sought to reunify the Cornish nationalist movement. Beer's three years as chairman of MK provided "a period of quiet but steady growth", in which MK increased its membership and focussed on cultural rather than political issues. Party meetings largely focussed on "calendars, Christmas cards, serviettes, Cornish language classes and proposals for things like the Cornish kilt."
Daphne du Maurier, the well-known novelist, was an early member of MK. From its founding until the 1980s, the party was divided between proponents of ethnic nationalism and proponents of civic nationalism.
Growth (1960s–1970s).
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, MK was in essence a small political pressure group rather than a true political party, with members being able to join other political parties as well. In February 1960, Beer was succeeded by Robert Dunstone as Chairman of MK. By March 1962, the party had seventy members, of which thirty were attending the party's infrequent meetings.
Under Dunstone, the party followed a policy of "patient, persistent, and polite lobbying", the standard for which was set by its reaction to proposed railway closures in 1962, which included public meetings, letters of protest and the formation of a transport sub-committee of the party. MK campaigned for the establishment of a Cornish University, a Cornish Industrial Board, and the repatriation of Heligoland Frisians whose land was used by the British government as a bombing range in the mid-1950s. It published numerous policy papers to support its positions.
MK gained popularity in the 1960s, when it campaigned against 'overspill' housing developments in Cornwall to accommodate incomers from Greater London. MK's opposition prompted opponents to label the party as racialist; the party denied the allegations and responded with "What Cornishmen Can Do", a pamphlet published in September 1968 which proposed more investment in natural resources, food processing and technological industries, as well as a Cornish University, tidal barrages and more support for small farmers. Partly due to its opposition to overspill, by 1965, the party numbered 700 members, rising to 1,000 by early 1968. In April 1967, Colin Murley was elected for MK onto Cornwall County Council for the seat of St Day &amp; Lanner; he had stood on an anti-overspill platform. MK members also sat as independent councillors on the district council. The party grew to become the leading champion for Cornish nationalism.
On St. Piran's Day in 1968, the first edition of "Cornish Nation" was published; this is the party's magazine. In the same year, Leonard Truran succeeded Dunstone as Chairman of MK; Dunstone then became the party's first Honorary President.
By the 1970s the group developed into a more coherent and unified organisation. At the annual conference in October 1967, party members voted for a resolution to contest elections to the House of Commons, marking a turning point in MK's transition from a pressure group into a political party. The decision meant that councillors, prospective parliamentary candidates and MPs who held dual party membership began to disassociate themselves from MK. Despite the decision, a faction in MK remained frustrated at the continuing possibility of dual party membership, the wide range of views on Cornish nationalism in the party and MK's slow transition into a political party; this dissident faction formed the Cornish National Party in July 1969. The CNP's members were expelled from MK, but the CNP had disappointing election results in the 1970 county council elections, leading most CNP members to rejoin MK by the mid-1970s.
In the 1970 election, Richard Jenkin, who would succeed Truran as Chairman of MK in 1973, won 2% of the vote in the Falmouth &amp; Camborne constituency. James Whetter stood for MK in the Truro constituency in the general elections of February and October 1974, achieving 1.5% and 0.7% of the vote respectively. The party contested the constituencies of St Ives and Falmouth &amp; Camborne in both the 1979 and 1983 elections. MK also contested the 1979 European Parliament election, winning 5.9% of the vote in the constituency of Cornwall &amp; West Plymouth.
Following Dunstone's death in 1973, E.G. Retallack Hooper was elected the party's Honorary President; Hooper was a former Grand Bard of the Gorseth Kernow who had been a founding member of MK and was a prolific Cornish language writer and journalist.
The CNP's formation highlighted deep fissures in MK between its constitutionalist and separatist wings; these were exacerbated by continuing inward migration to Cornwall, leading to a 26% increase in its population in the two decades to 1981. The "Cornish Nation" gave increasingly sympathetic coverage of Irish republicanism; MK warned of civil unrest in Cornwall and the extermination of the Cornish national identity if overspill continued; and its members talked openly of plans to install a shadow government "in the name of the Cornish people in the event of civil breakdown". A motion to restrict party membership to those who were Cornish by "family trees going back through several centuries" was defeated in 1973; and a September 1974 issue of the "Cornish Nation" describing Michael Gaughan, an IRA hunger striker, as a "Celtic hero" was widely criticised in the press and rebuked by the party. MK's divisions came to a head in May 1975, when a motion to depose the party's leadership and integrate the party with the Revived Stannary Parliament, which had newly reopened in 1974, was narrowly defeated. On 28 May 1975, Whetter, who had led the defeated motion, resigned his membership of MK to form a second Cornish Nationalist Party, which campaigned for full Cornish independence on a pro-European platform. This second CNP also had disappointing electoral results and has not contested elections since 1985.
During the 1970s, MK held rallies in support of Cornwall's fishing industry and against regional unemployment and nuclear waste; in the 1980s, these rallies were aggravated by the policies of the incumbent Thatcher government. Following the 1975 split, the party was re-energised by an influx of new, younger members, which also pushed MK more firmly away from its separatist wing. Citing concerns about its effect on Cornwall's fishing industry, the party opposed the Common Market; MK only began to endorse the UK's membership of the EEC in the 1980s.
Decline (1980s).
The party declined in the 1980s and was close to collapse by 1990. In 1980, renewed infighting over the party's structure led to a spate of resignations which received media attention; this included the resignation of Truran, who had served as party secretary after Jenkin had replaced him as Chairman of MK in 1973. Leading the infighting was a new, youthful leftist faction of MK, which sought to define the party's policies on defence, the monarchy and public ownership, bringing the party away from its traditional nationalist focus. While the infighting consolidated MK's economic stance as left-of-centre, the party's everchanging positions confused voters and presided over the decline of its magazines, including the "Cornish Nation". In 1983, Jenkin was replaced by Julyan Drew as the party leader; Drew was succeeded by Pedyr Prior in 1985 and Loveday Carlyon in 1986.
At the 1983 general election, MK achieved 1.2% of the vote in both Falmouth &amp; Camborne and St Ives, reduced from 3% and 4% respectively in the previous election. It contested neither the 1984 European Parliament election nor the 1987 general election; it received 1.9% of the vote in Cornwall &amp; West Plymouth in the 1989 European Parliament election. During this period, the party focussed on its opposition to the creation of a South West England region and the construction of a nuclear station at Luxulyan; this latter campaign culminated in the formation of the Cornish Anti-Nuclear Alliance, which drew over 2,000 attendees to its first rallies in Truro in July 1980. MK's vociferous response to the planned building of 40,000 new homes in Cornwall, manifested in the formation in 1987 of the Cornish Alternatives to the Structure Plan, gained high-profile notability in Cornwall. MK also campaigned against tourism-centred economic development and the poll tax. Nevertheless, public