Bledhen Nowyth Da!

Taken from the Morning Star

This Happy New Year in Cornish - or Kernewek - heralds a revival of the campaign to make Cornwall a separate nation.

In what could be a major Celtic resurgence Welsh nationalists gave their backing yesterday to calls from the south-west peninsular for autonomy.

Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow is demanding an elected assembly and ultimately devolved powers from Westminster similar to those enjoyed by Scotland.

Its campaign comes a decade after 50,000 people - 10 per cent of the population of Cornwall - signed a petition supporting its aims.

And in a show of pan-Celtic unity Plaid Cymru has given the initiative its backing.

Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards has launched an early day motion calling "for the formation of a democratically elected Cornish Assembly to take decisions for the benefit of the people of Cornwall."

So far it has been signed by 10 MPs from his party, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, including Cornish Lib Dem MPs Andrew George (St Ives), Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) and Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall).

Dick Cole, Mebyon Kernow leader, said: "We are campaigning for devolution within the UK and for powers similar to those of the Scottish Parliament."

The nationalists argue that Cornwall has never politically officially been a county of England but is a separate country which after the Romans left Britain 1600 years ago, was independently ruled.

Cornwall's language has been undergoing a revival with dual-language road signs and, in January 2010, the opening of a creche teaching young children the language.

The Cornish language is closely related to Welsh and Breton and a little more distantly to Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic.

The Communist Party also recognises the special position of Cornwall in relation to the rest of England. Our party's programme, Britain's Road to Socialism, notes that:

“The distinctive cultural and social characteristics of Cornwall should be expressed through a directly elected Cornish Assembly, with powers that match local aspirations” and that:

“The national movements in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall also contain substantial progressive and left-wing elements that oppose reactionary policies of monopoly capital and the British state”.