Cornish Recognition What It Means ?

Cornish recognition what it means? some thoughts 

Rob Simmons 

Robscornishblog

The article can be found here

Mebyon Kernow

I'm no legal expert and this early days for Cornish recognition for the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, so this is more of a discussion piece than a definitive account of what this historic decision means. Take a pinch of salt where necessary add a comment where you wish but these are my thoughts on what it means. There are a number of discussions at the moment taking place and I'm not going to try to summarise them all. But here I'll take a quick look at what the Framework means, what it means for equality legislation and what changes might occour now.

Of course I must echo Mebyon Kernow leader Dick Cole in saying this is fantastic news, but I also agree with Andrew Long when he said:

‘It is excellent news Government are finally recognising something the European Union have recognised for years and the Cornish have known for generations.’
On the Cornish Times website.

What is the Framework Convention?:

Fantastic, historic, momentous, groundbreaking there are certainly a plethora of positive descriptions that could be given. But what is the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities? In short it's an agreement between the states of Europe to protect identities of peoples in the aim of creating and ensuring harmony. As the preamble explains:

"Considering that the upheavals of European history have shown that the protection of national minorities is essential to stability, democratic security and peace in this continent;

Considering that a pluralist and genuinely democratic society should not only respect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of each person belonging to a national minority, but also create appropriate conditions enabling them to express, preserve and develop this identity;

Considering that the creation of a climate of tolerance and dialogue is necessary to enable cultural diversity to be a source and a factor, not of division, but of enrichment for each society;"
link

This is not something emanating from the European Union, it is from the Council of Europe and it is up to members of the council to decide whether to implement it. This map from wikipedia goes some way to illustrating how the Framework stands across Europe:

European states that aren't members of the EU (e.g. Switzerland) are signatories, other EU members like France ignore it completely. It is at the behest of state governments to implement this and to define groups individual governments consider a national minority. This is why so much lobbying for Cornish recognition has taken place over the years and finally and thankfully Westminster has relented. In short this is a multilateral treaty that seeks equality and protection of identities of cultures between national majorities (such as the English) and national minorities (such as the Cornish) specifically duties of the state to ensure this. 

How might it apply to Kernewek and broadcasting?:

So what does this specifically mean? In my opinion parts of the Convention are quite woolly and open to interpretation. Such as the first paragraph of Article 9:

"The Parties undertake to recognise that the right to freedom of expression of every person belonging to a national minority includes freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas in the minority language, without interference by public authorities and regardless of frontiers. The Parties shall ensure, within the framework of their legal systems, that persons belonging to a national minority are not discriminated against in their access to the media."

What could this mean? and what limits might "within the framework of their legal systems" actually entail? We could read this and argue that the present form of broadcasting is sufficient "access" or we might argue that "access" requires Cornish language tv, radio and print media. It could also be argued that media is the preserve of the private sector and not the state and it is up to private enterprise, not the government to ensure "access". Although considering the UK has a state media in the BBC and statutory requirements with independent broadcasters are in place, it would be within the power of government to allow access to our minority language. 

What about housing policy?

There's an interesting debate about how the Convention affects Cornwall Council/ government housing policy specifically the local plan. Bernard Deacon has made the argument here that a housing policy predicated on an increased migration to Cornwall (from England) infringes the convention and specifically Article 16:

"The Parties shall refrain from measures which alter the proportions of the population in areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities."

The local plan explains that migration to Cornwall is a factor in increasing the house building rate to 2020 so does it therefore follow that the state is infringing article 16? 

Do other rights and protections now follow?:

Although the convention was ratified by the UK government in 1998, since then and until the Cornish have been excluded from it. However other groups were included in it. Most notably the Welsh, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, Gypsy and Irish traveller. Because the government took the view that groups native -if you will- to the UK that had been recognised under the Race Relations Act 1976 where covered by the convention. The Labour government's argument for denying the Cornish was that there had not been a case tried at court that had shown the Cornish to be defined as a 'national' or 'racial' group. So rather than challenging the arguments put to them that the Cornish fit the criteria as a nation (flag, common history, self identification, common geographical origin, language, culture etc). They left it up to the courts to decide, the story of John Angarrack's brave effort to do this and the Cornish Fighting Fund is summarised here. 

Other than a dig at Labour and their scornful attitude to Cornish identity and recognition, there is a point I am getting to here. If it follows that the same groups recognised as National Minorities are recognised in anti discrimination legislation such as the Race Relations Act, is the converse true do the Cornish now enjoy the protection of this legislation? Could prosecutions be made in cases where Cornish people are discriminated against and vice versa in cases of Cornish people discriminating against the English? Surely now not only the Race Relations Act but also the Equality Act 2010 ensure protections of the Cornish people. If the government denies this then surely they have broken articles of the Framework Convention? This point is significant because it seems the Convention applies to protections to a people, their culture and identity from the policies and acts of the state. Whereas the Equality act and Race Relations act provide protection against discrimination from individuals and organisations.  

On the subject of housing, remember the case in Illogan, whereby a locals were refused housing in the village because they were not from London (Scandal of Cornish homes for Londoners). Could the Equality Act be used here?

The Cornish should now get a tickbox in the census:

The last point I want to make here is on the census, hitherto the Cornish have been able to record that identity on the census but with a write in option rather than a tick box. In the 2011 census all national minorities recognised under the Framework Convention had a dedicated tickbox with their identity written beside. Cornish was the only national minority group recorded but not explicitly written on the form. My reading of Article 4 is quite clear:

"The Parties undertake to guarantee to persons belonging to national minorities the right of equality before the law and of equal protection of the law. In this respect, any discrimination based on belonging to a national minority shall be prohibited."

I don't see how the government (this or the next) can discriminate against the Cornish by not including a tickbox and denying our identity equal footing with English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh etc. Further there are many organisations that collect data on ethnic and national origins, some do already collect Cornish and some don't. It would now seem the all have to collect Cornish and allow it to be displayed to users on an equal footing with other identities.

Conclusion:

The real effects of the recognition of Cornish national identity are yet to be known. Most of this will be a legal process. I would very much expect some of the issues and arguments I have touched upon here to be debated and perhaps tested in the legal system. I apologise for the rambling nature of the above blog and how it flits between subjects. But this is an issue with huge ramifications, this is a 'game-changer' and there ought to be a very real debate on how this all applies. I imagine there are a number of organisations governmental, councils, businesses, housing associations that will have to think how their existing equality policies now apply with respect of the Cornish. I'll leave you with one last thought: we may have laughed (or tried to) at the BBC programme W1A and the fictional Spotlight news presenter overlooked for promotion in the BBC because she was Cornish, but that fictional case might soon be impossible in reality or challenged in the courts....

A couple of articles have caught my eye on this subject of Cornish recognition:

Cornish pasties must be added to the citizenship test

Cornwall to join UEFA? (or indeed field a '7 Nations' rugby team? Commonwealth games?)

The treaty itself: Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities

Battle of Bossenden Wood 1838 -

 75th anniversary of the last armed battle on English soil: May 31 1838

By Keith Flett

Morning Star 30th May 2013

Bossenden Wood

It is 175 years since the last armed rising on English soil.

At Bossenden Wood in Kent on 31^st May 1838 troops of the 45^th foot regiment engaged the followers of ‘Sir William Courtenay’. 

At the end of the battle an army officer, Courtenay and up to a dozen of his followers were dead.

To give a sense of the scale of this battle, EP Thompson described it as ‘perhaps the most desperate battle on English soil since 1745’ with a death toll, similar to, or perhaps higher than that of Peterloo in 1819.

Just weeks earlier the six demands of the Peoples’ Charter had been launched in London leading to a mass movement which aimed to secure political rights for working men. 

This political engagement was, very largely, over time, successful.

Yet the events in Bossenden Wood a few weeks later should not be easily dismissed because they were the path not taken which ended in failure and death.

Courtenay, real name John Nichollos Tom, (56 Pyder Street, Truro, Cornwall) by profession a wine merchant, had been a follower of the radical Thomas Spence and was perhaps broadly in the tradition of the millenarian Joanna Southcott.

He had come to Canterbury in 1832 and ended up in jail and then an asylum

On release, EP Thompson notes, that Courtenay lived in the homes of peasants in villages around Canterbury.

Just a few years after the Captain Swing riots and the Tolpuddle Martyrs, these were tough times for agricultural labourers, paid little to do back breaking work.

Courtenay find a ready audience for his radical and millenarian ideas.

In particular he denounced the 1834 Poor Law Act which ushered in the era of the Workhouse.

But his preferred method of opposing it was far from the political agitation of the People’s Charter.

In May 1838 Courtenay began to tour around Kent villages on horseback armed with pistols and a sword leading between fifty and a hundred labourers armed, Thompson notes, with bludgeons.

He must have been something of a spectacle riding with a loaf of bread on a pole under a blue and white flag with a rampant lion.

He read to his followers from the Bible, in particular James Chapter V stating:

‘go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you’.

A police officer was sent to arrest him and was promptly killed.

At this point Courtenay and a group of followers went to Bossenden Wood, where in due course battle was joined with an army unit of 100 soldiers.

The battle was an unequal one. The army had guns. The labourers did not.

However army Lieutenant Boswell Bennett was shot and killed by Courtenay before he himself was shot dead. On 2^nd June in Canterbury a verdict of justifiable homicide was returned.

As EP Thompson notes while the existence of those who fought at Bossenden Wood was ‘filled with poverty and oppression’ their mental world was ‘filled with violent images from hell-fire and Revelation’

The millennarial strategy of Courtenay seems a world apart from that of the People’s Charter but it as well to remember that both appealed to very similar audiences.
When it came to the Government the distinction was hardly made at all.

When the Chartists attempted to lead an armed revolution at Newport in November 1839, the crack regiment of the British Army was despatched and in another unequal battle it shot down and killed numbers of Chartists in the centre of Newport.

That regiment was the 45^th foot that had also shot down Courtenay and his followers at Bossenden Wood 18 months earlier.

Cornish Oyster Feast 1925

FIRST CORNISH OYSTER FEAST 1925

:

  
1925:  First Cornish Oyster Feast. "Duchy of Cornwall" oysters will - it is predicted - soon rival Colchester and Whitstable. Falmouth, Cornwall.

Above the Llangwm Osyster women, The village of Llangwm is located in Pembrokeshire's National Park  and nestles into the western banks of the Cleddau Estuary in Wales - circa 1900


Below is a painting dated 1892 of the return of the Oyster fishers at Cancale, Brittany, France
 

Frome - LibDem Farm Minister - Rural Poverty - Rural Revolt

David Heath LibDem Farm Minister axes Agricultural Wages Board, he and his Party supported prior to the 2010 General election today he faced a protest by local  farm workers and supporters of Country Standard.

Axing the Agricultural wages Board and forcing thousands of Farm workers into poverty does not seem to trouble Somerton & Frome MP.

A majority of those responding to the consultation on Agricultural wages Board called for it to be maintained, and DEFRA itself accepted it would take millions out of the rural economy (ie they anticipate pay cuts)

The LibDems were happy to support Labour's proposals for increased powers for the Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA) to regulate the power of supermarkets and its relationships with farmers, but obviously think farm workers should not have similar protection, what is clear is the LibDem's do not care about Rural Poverty

Interestingly, his fellow LibDem MP's don't seem to have been consulted on his actions and a number (including Cornish LibDem Andrew George) have stated that they believe it would be a disaster if the AWB was axed.

Stop Rural Poverty - Support the Agricultural Wages Board

Another Very Cornish Council Coup (Attempted)

It's clear from that indomitable Cornish campaigner for Democracy Cllr Andrew Wallis, that the Senior Officers at Cornwall council are still trying to rest power away from elected councillors, in their vain attempt to ensure mass privatisation of Council services goes ahead in Cornwall prior to the May 2013 Cornwall Council Elections.

Cllr Wallis recently blogged the following important communique, which we reproduce here in the interest of securing a wider audience for his grave concerns at what we at Country Standard see a yet another half backed "coup" attempt by Senior Officers of Cornwall Council.

It's time Councillors seized back the power from un-elected officers of Cornwall council, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Cornish Jim Speaks out on the Hard-sell of Shared Services

Posted by Andrew Wallis on Friday, November 9, 2012 Posted in: Shared Services. 1 comment

The new Cabinet Leader of Cornwall (Conservative Jim Currie who took over from pro privatisation former Tory leader. Ed) has taken the unprecedented step of sending all Councillors an email quashing a ‘rumour’ that he is now in favour of the outsourcing plans with BT. However, it is not just the rumour part of the email, but claims of hard sell and information not being forthcoming.



In the email it goes on to say:



I have made it clear to senior management that, whilst maintaining circumspection, my previous attitude to the JV has actually hardened.



This situation is due to the relentless hard sell of the JV with no counter arguments. This is democratically unacceptable. Members have a right to all the evidence available and this has not been forthcoming.



When the most senior Councillor has to take steps and sends an email like this, you have to worry. Furthermore, I have been told that many staff are being briefed that the hard-JV is the only option, and even if that happens, not all jobs are safe either.



The plot thickens, and not in a good way either.

End:

Cornwall's Tory leader decapitated by bunker busters

 

Tory Leader Alec Robertosn - No More !


 
It's official, the people of Cornwall have spoken they have sacked Tory privatisation fundamentalist, Councillor Alec Robertson as leader of Cornwall Council.

Cornish councillors across the political spectrum - Independents, MK, LibDem, Labour and even some Tories have said enough is enough and put an end to mass privatisation, off shoring of Cornwall's services and put people first.

The vote of no confidence in the Tory leader was won by 63 to 49 and greeted with applause by councillors and the public alike.

Cllr Robertson had consistently refused to recognise an earlier council vote to halt the privatisation plan and attempted his own Cornish "Beer Hall Putsch", Planning to steam ahead with the privatisation plans from his bunker without a mandate.

The Cornish people responded with a huge cross party campaign to defend democracy on the council, led by two Independent councillors, securing wide spread support from political parties, town/parish councils, churches, unions and community groups.

Bob Egerton, Independent councillor for Probus in Cornwall who proposed the motion of no confidence in the Cornish leadership, said the county's outsourcing programme ceded too much control over key services to the private sector.

"It is handing over public services to a private company where decisions are not being made for the local council tax payer, but for the company," he said. "Look at the rail franchises. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that the private sector doesn't necessarily do things better than the public sector. It wasn't the councils that caused the financial problems, it was the bankers, and it is the councils that are having to bail them out."


Cornish campaigners are now demanding an urgent audit of the expenditure and exposure to risk contained in the Privatisation project. Councillors are also questioning the role of senior Cornwall Council officers, especially in the legal department who attempted to silence opposition to the privatisation plans.

What is clear is that Cornish people will stand up for Democracy and for quality public services.

The anti London Coalition forces are growing in Cornwall - Roll on May 2013 Local Elections.

Expect a huge surge in 2013 for Mebyon Kernow (Party of Cornwall), Labour, Green's and anti London, anti Coalition LibDem's.

Join The Resistance

COUNTRY STANDARD
DRAFT
8 POINT PROGRAMME

2013 CORNWALL COUNCIL ELECTIONS

- No To Coalition Cuts

- No To Privatisation

- Yes To A Cornish Assembly

- Yes To A National Stadium

- Yes To UK Fishing & Farming Policy

- Yes To High Speed Broadband

- Yes To A Reduction In Second Homes

- Yes To Affordable Housing