MK featured in The Times

The Cornish Movement was highlighted in The Times today with a three page spread to mark St Piran’s Day. It was another positive piece and featured Independent Cllr Bert Biscoe and MK Cllrs Andrew Long and Loveday Jenkin.

To give you a taste of the article, here are a few quotes:

The Cornish are indignant that a petition signed by more than 10 per cent of the population calling for a referendum on self-government has been ignored despite government promises for more than a decade. St Piran … would be turning in his grave at such intransigence if his remains had not been dug up and distributed as relics to churches across the South West.

“Cornwall is a British nation being treated like an English county. My nationality is Cornish, I don’t feel English at all, and I would feel a lot more British if the UK Government recognised us as the fifth constituent nation,” says Sam, a student from Truro.

Ian Saltern, a Cornish activist sums it up when he says: “Cornish is my ethnic and national identity. I can feel no more English than someone who is Scottish, Welsh or Irish."

In recent years, Cornish separatists have been emboldened by the coalition Government. Cornwall used to be the heartland of Britain’s Liberal Democrats. Nothing, apart perhaps from a tax on pasties, could have done more to boost Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist party, than the Lib Dem’s alliance with the hated Tories. The party recently won a fifth seat on Cornwall Council. It has four more than Labour …

Andrew Long gave up his job as a shopfitter to devote himself to his work as a councillor. He says: “We are trying to drive home to central government that just because it is big doesn’t mean it is better. We are fed up with decades of people not giving a monkey’s about Cornwall. We are not talking about border controls on the Tamar, but we see ourselves as part of a federated British Isles."

Dr Jenkin agrees: “Just because we are small does not mean that we can’t look after ourselves. There are masses of examples of small regions being able to run their own affairs.”