St Michael's Mount, Cornwall (source Freefoto.com)
An interesting piece has just been published in the UK section of this website, examining the relationship between Cornwall and the rest of the United Kingdom. (Read it here.) Formally, at present, Cornwall is a county in England, with limited powers of local administration, but with no significant legislative powers and no constitutional protection whatsoever. The powers and functions of Cornwall County Council are determined and may be changed by Westminster and Whitehall.
Is this right? Other parts of the United Kingdom, such as Scotland, Wales and even London, have greater devolved powers than this: should Cornwall have them too?
Our author, Philip Hosking, thinks so, and cites various historical and legal arguments in his favour. It is a persistent theme of this blog, though, that history contains not wrongs to be righted but lessons to be learned and mistakes not to be repeated. The future is more interesting than the past.
And what of the future of Cornwall? It is a second theme of this blog that political institutions should be shaped in the popular image. (This is why we have a European Union and not a European federation, for example.) What is the popular image of Cornwall?
That is where the historical arguments come in. Even if they do not constitute the contemporary reality, they certainly shape perceptions of that reality, and in a modern democracy perception is nine tenths of the law.
On that basis, I can well believe that Cornwall does not sit happily within the government region of the South West. Government regions were created in order to better deliver Whitehall policies, not to correspond to local identities. And the man in Whitehall does not always know best.
In the South West, for example, to travel from Penzance in Cornwall to Bristol, the administrative centre of the region, takes more than twice as long as it takes to travel from Bristol to London. From Cornwall, Bristol does not seem very close. In fact, and this will surprise you, Bristol is almost as far away from Penzance as it is from Scotland. From Bristol, Cornwall does not feel very close.
But the man in Whitehall might reply that, while Cornwall may be far away, it is also small: its population is only 500,000, and that is far too little for a region. The man in Whitehall has obviously never heard of the German Land of Bremen, with a population of 664,000, or of Austria, where 4 Länder have populations below that, or Switzerland, which spreads its 7 million people among as many as 26 cantons. If they can manage, why can’t the Cornish?
So, if geography argues in favour of some kind of self-government for Cornwall and population does not argue against it, the matter becomes a matter of practicalities and negotiation, with no obvious reason why it should fail.
There remains only the question of how to confer democratic legitimacy on such new arrangements. A referendum, perhaps?
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How to make a county disappear: http://duchyofcornwall.eu/
Well I don’t have the exact formula but if you study this website from the Duchy of Cornwall Human Rights Association you’ll be able to see exactly the constitutional loops the establishment and Duchy authority have jumped through to turn Cornwall, an extraterritorial crown possession legally separate from England, into a supposed English county.
This site explains how a British territorial possession became someone’s private estate.
It makes great and fairly easy reading and should be studied by all those interested in the UK constitution.
man, or woman, in Whitehall…
Don’t forget the many COUNTRIES with populations fewer than Cornwall…
Luxembourg, Iceland, Brunei, to name just a few. In fact according to Wikipedia there are 34 of them, not including dependancies.
Of course I’m not advocating complete independence but the idea that Cornwall is too small to be a region is preposterous.
I live right on the border with Cornwall. In fact it is at the end of my street and this issues has been beaten to death for years. At the end of the day if the people of Cornwall really want to break away from this country as Wales and Scotland seem to then let them. They can then get on with governing themselves and if it goes wrong then tough for them.
We will not have much of a nation left at this rate. As for being far from Bristol then the people of south and west Devon could say the same. I mean Bristol feels like another world to me down here and London literally another galaxy because we are so forgotten down here in the Wild West. Why not just break down the entire country and finish with Britain period?!
Of course, we could just do a US style EU and then we would all be European Nationals and it would put an end to all this wanting to separate from each other. Somehow I doubt most of the “British” would go for that though. Well, I am a Welsh/English boy who grew up in North Cornwall so I am screwed, LOL!
One challenge is that the Cornish people are not agreed as to what change would be acceptable. Few, I think, seriously propose complete independence and in any case it would be hard to see how Cornwall could sustain itself as a separate country on its limited resources, even within the EU.
An obvious possibility would be for Cornwall to exist as a tenth region within England (separate from the SW region). I think this notion has been rejected due to it being an intention that the English regions are of a similar size and are as sustainable as possible. Furthermore, there are those in Cornwall who would object to retaining the ‘English’ status.
Perhaps a federal United Kingdom with Cornwall enjoying home nation (or duchy) status? Sustainability would remain a problem and I don’t know how well this would go down with the majority of the people of Cornwall, but I suspect a greater degree of autonomy whilst remaining part of the UK would be popular.
I think the reason why Cornwall is not considered a separate region is coz they want to seem to have similar sized regions. These regions seem to have about 5million or so people other than Wales(3million) & NI(1million) which are the other home nations. North West is around 5million as is Scotland. London is 7million.
I see what you mean about the region stuff. Local news in Scotland is the Scottish region. My local news for Ayr includes news from Aberdeen which is 4hrs away & Inverness/highlands etc. not very local. BBC Scotland is sub-national not local news.
I’ve never seen Cornwall as a country. I’ve always seen it as a county of England just like Devon.