National origins It is important to stress that the Cornish claim that their origins as a group are non-English. The usual way this is done is by claiming Celtic roots. However, in the nineteenth century there were two other narratives of national origin in Cornwall. First, some claimed an origin as "one of the tribes of Israel". More usually, and this is still sometimes heard in contemporary Cornwall, others claim a Spanish origin, based on a misunderstanding of Cornish surnames such as Jose, Clemo, Jago, Pascoe and similar. But the point is that all claims of origin, however accurate they may be, share a common non-English origin.	Perceptions 6.1  But for an ‘ethnic category’ to become an ‘ethnic community’ or ‘national minority’ it requires more than objective differences. It needs to be seen as a distinct community by insiders, who act upon this perception, as well as by outsiders. Therefore the question becomes one of whether the Cornish perceive themselves as a distinct community and whether those who are not Cornish recognise that distinction and draw boundaries between themselves and the Cornish.  6.2  This is the real significance of aspects of Cornish difference such as the Duchy of Cornwall or the Stannary Parliament. There is a body of evidence that points to a special status for the Duchy (summarised in Payton, 1993, 245-246). For example, the Duchy still appoints the High Sheriff, unlike the usual case in English counties. The Charter of Pardon of 1508 bestowed distinct rights to the Stannary Parliament to veto Westminster legislation, rights that have never been repealed. The Stannary Parliament last met in its traditional guise in 1750, although a convocation was proposed as late as 1865 (Rowe, 1953, 314). Stannary powers and the status of the Duchy are often summarily dismissed outside Cornwall as remnants of feudalism. However, the relevant point in respect of the Cornish claim to be a national minority is that people in Cornwall have revived the claim of Stannary rights, meeting regularly since 1974 and actively demanding the recognition of rights long since ignored by Westminster.  6.3  The existence of bodies like the Stannary Parliament both re-affirms the distinct constitutional history of Cornwall and provides an ethnic dimension to contemporary protest movements that is rarely found in England. Thus, in 1990-91, the anti-poll tax campaign in Cornwall took on  6.4  Stannary Parliament activists are part of a political Cornish ‘Renaissance’ that is once again unique within the administrative boundaries of England. The main Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow, has been continuously active for almost 50 years, being founded in 1951. For the last 25 years it has regularly fought elections at all levels, receiving an estimated 10% of the Cornish vote at the European election of 1979. While it has remained marginal at Westminster elections it has achieved some limited successes at local level and is currently represented on Cornwall County Council as well as four of the six District Councils and many Parish and Town Councils. Its vote in local elections has been consistent, as shown below. Mean MK vote at single seat County & District Council Elections % 1976-83 1984-91 1992-99 Contests where 1 of the 3 major parties were absent. 22.8 33.3 28.7   Contests where all three major  parties were present. 8.8 11.4 8.1   Number 34 18 3 Such a voting level reflects a respectable core of support forCornish nationalism at a local level. And in a proportional voting system MK would gain considerably more seats than it does. Its persistence indicates consistent ethno-regionalist political organisation in Cornwall as is found in Scotland and Wales and in European regions and nations such as Brittany, the Basque Country and Catalonia.  6.5       At certain times the nationalist organisations in Cornwall draw in wider support, notably over issues that seem to threaten the territorial integrity of Cornwall and its formal border. Campaigns against proposals in 1969 to create a ‘greater Plymouth’ council helped to achieve the dropping of that proposal. And, from 1979, there has been considerable and sustained support for campaigns against the voting arrangements for the European Parliament, arrangements that resulted in Cornwall sharing an MEP with Plymouth before 1999 and since then with six English counties. The first European Parliamentary Boundary Commission received over four times the number of complaints from Cornwall as it did from the whole of England. Subsequent Boundary Commissions were forced to hold public enquiries although the consistent weight of opposition from Cornwall and Cornish demands for an MEP who would solely represent Cornish views in the European Parliament has been steadfastly ignored.  6.6  The campaigns over European representation reflect the strong territorial identity that exists in Cornwall. Indeed, territory is a core value of the modern Cornish identity (Deacon, 1993). Threats to a perceived territorial integrity are seen as threats to Cornishness and periodically draw in a wider constituency of support for the arguments of Cornish nationalists. This highlights an important distinction between Cornish political nationalism and Cornishness. The latter is a far wider phenomenon than the former. As the political scientist Jeffrey Stanyer suggests, "if Cornishness is important it is because it influences those who are not separatists" (1997, 93). While the label ‘separatist’ would no doubt be rejected by most Cornish nationalists, Stanyer has stumbled upon a key point here. Self-identification as members of a Cornish ethnic community goes much wider than those actively engaged in a Cornish cultural or political sub-culture. To restrict Cornishness to the latter would seriously underestimate the role of a Cornish ethnic identity in contemporary Cornwall. 6.7   The early traveller and antiquarian Norden noted in the 1500s that some Cornish "retain a kind of concealed envy against the English, whom they yet affect with a kind of desire for revenge for their fathers’ sakes, by whom their fathers received the repulse" (cited in Cornwall, 1977, 42) Similarly the Cornish antiquarian Carew, writing around 1600, noted that some Cornish were still "fostering a fresh memory of their expulsion long ago by the English" (Carew, 1811). Such comments have been interpreted by a modern historian as clear "evidence of the West Cornish determination to resist cultural assimilation with England" (Stoyle, 1999, 431). This is also evidence for a perceived boundary between the Cornish and the non-Cornish. Such boundaries, necessary for the expression of ethnic claims, were clearest between Cornish speakers and English speakers (perhaps many of whom were born in Cornwall) in the sixteenth century.  6.8  However, these ethnic boundaries are now drawn much more widely and are a part of everyday life in Cornwall, although flexible and fluid rather than fixed. In an ethnographic study of people in West Cornwall in the late 1980s Mary McArthur concluded that, in day to day life, "consciousness of ethnic difference can range from being non-existent on the part of both Cornish and English (in Cornwall) to being very important" (1988, 96). In general she found that awareness of their ethnicity was not weak among Cornish people. McArthur claimed that "most Cornish people were very sure of their Cornish identity" and found evidence for a sharpening of ethnic sentiment among many Cornish people, "even though this did not accompany political mobilisation nor support for Cornish nationalism" (McArthur, 98). Her research confirmed for her that The Cornish are a named group or community, with a self-awareness (albeit of differing degrees) of a separate identity, being long established in a well-defined territory, and according to this definition do qualify for the label ‘ethnic group’ or ‘ethnic community’ (McArthur, 1988, 81). 6.9  Local government bodies in Cornwall such as Cornwall County Council have accepted that the Cornish make up an ethnic group within Cornwall. In 1987 the County Council stated that "it is not a legitimate planning consideration however to seek to preserve any particular ethnic group as a certain proportion of the population" (Cornwall County Council, 1987, 4), thus accepting that the Cornish were an ethnic group. And, in the mid-1990s, it was reported that "Treliske Hospital (at Truro) has acknowledged that ‘the term "ethnic group" legitimately and technically covers groups such as Cornish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English"’ (Sheaff, 1996, 143).  6.10  Often this feeling of ethnicity is explicitly described as ‘nationality’. This appears to have surprised and confused the political scientist Bernard Crick, who, when confronted by an entry of ‘Cornish’ nationality in a hotel register responded "once I read ‘Cornish’ but I suspected, correctly, that it was a wag and not a nut" (Crick, 1989, 23). Crick’s response reflects the way the Cornish issue has, until recently, been ignored or ridiculed by academics in the UK (see also Williams, 1992). 6.11  No doubt Crick would be seriously alarmed to discover that defining Cornishness as a nationality is by no means as uncommon as he believed. For example the entries of people with Cornish addresses in a Church visitors’ book in a period over the late 1980s and early 1990s broke down as follows: Description of ‘nationality’ in Old Kea church visitors’ book, 1985-92 (entries with Cornish address)   number % Cornish 152 29.9 English 71 13.9   British/UK 242 47.5   none 44 8.6   509 100.0 Given that high rates of in-migration since the early 1960s probably mean that the proportion of the population of Cornwall who are Cornish born is somewhere between 40 and 50% this suggests that a high percentage of Cornish people are willing, in certain circumstances, to define their nationality as Cornish. This finding is borne out by other quantitative data. For instance a private sector housing survey carried out by Carrick District Council in 1996 gave residents the opportunity to describe their ethnic group as Cornish as well as White British, Black Caribbean, Black African etc. Of the 716 persons surveyed, 37.2% opted to describe themselves as Cornish, as compared with 58.7% who preferred the descriptor ‘White British’. Again, this implies a considerable willingness to self-define as ‘Cornish’. This is especially the case as the Cornish-born are more likely to be in public sector housing (see below, section 9). 6.12  More qualitative evidence for the strength of feeling of the Cornish ethnic community can be found in the support given to the Cornish rugby team, which acts as a surrogate for public expressions of allegiance to Cornwall. That this is viewed as qualitatively different from the normal run of loyalty to local sporting teams can be illustrated by comparing the addresses of the Presidents of the Yorkshire Rugby Football Union and the Cornwall Rugby Football Union on the eve of the 1991 County Championship Final: While the Yorkshireman saw ‘county’ rugby mainly as a stepping stone to ‘English rugby’, this emphasis was entirely missing from the Cornish President’s address. Instead, he referred to Bishop Trelawny’s imprisonment and the legendary events of the seventeenth century and argued that ‘the Cornish have the additional motivation of a Celtic people striving to preserve an identity’ (Deacon, 1993, 207) 6.13     This perception was not limited to the Cornish alone. The response of the London press to the 40,000 supporters who followed the rugby team to Twickenham in 1989 suggests an awareness that the Cornish support for their rugby team took on extra symbolic overtones. The Guardian wrote: "like the Welsh, the Cornish take the view that rugby and community are the same thing". In a similar vein the Independent stated that "Cornishmen used the great ground (Twickenham) for a statement, if not of Celtic nationhood, then at least of their distinct identity" (cited in Cornwall County Council, 1993, 15). The Plymouth newspaper The Western Morning News also wrote in an editorial about the Cornish rugby fans "who carry the Cornish cause into the capital of foreign England" (cited in Payton, 1992, 244). 6.14  In 1997 the strength of feeling about the Cornish identity was graphically displayed in the widespread interest in and support for Keskerdh Kernow 500, the commemoration of the 1497 uprising that re-enacted the march of the Cornish 500 years before from St.Keverne in west Cornwall to London. Thousands turned out to take part in the start of the march, again when it crossed the River Tamar into England and yet again at its end at Blackheath in London. Schools and organisations across Cornwall became involved and the event received a high profile in the local media (see Parker, 1998). At events such as this or at rugby matches involving Cornwall the black and white flag of St.Piran is much in evidence. This is a potent symbol of belonging and its use has mushroomed in Cornwall since the 1950s. 6.15  The comments from outsiders cited in paragraph 6.13 above clearly show that the Cornish are often regarded as a discrete group by the non-Cornish in a similar way as are the Scots and Welsh. This is not new. In 1652 the English puritan Roger Williams complained that "we have Indians… in Cornwall, Indians in Wales, Indians in Ireland" (cited in Hill, 1994, 138). The term ‘Indian’ was "routinely applied by the inhabitants of Stuart England to groups that they felt to be quintessentially ‘un-English’" (Stoyle, 1999, 431). In this stereotyping the Cornish were being compared with the Welsh and the Irish. The notion that the Cornish were somehow ‘foreign’ reappears regularly in the English imagination over the following three centuries. By the late 1800s the Cornish were being seen as a primitive and simple ‘Celtic’ folk and contrasted with the supposed ‘modernity’ of England (e.g. Hudson, 1908). In the inter-war period Cornwall was routinely evoked as "a foreign land – still rooted in the natural essence of its uncorrupted, aboriginal peasantry" (Vernon, 1998, 165). 6.16  These romantic English imaginings of the Cornish both reflected existing differences and helped reproduce a sense of difference among the Cornish, often in a reaction against the cloying romanticism of the dominant imagery. Texts such as Daphne du Maurier’s Vanishing Cornwall (1967) or Denys Val Baker’s The Spirit of Cornwall (1980) popularised to a market of suburban holiday-makers romantic stereotypes of a timeless, superstitious Cornish people rooted to their land. Such ideas reinforced the idea of a boundary between the Cornish and the English and helped to fix the notion of ‘difference’ in the minds of Cornish and non-Cornish alike. At the same time, of course, such romantic notions, combined with the predominant experience of Cornwall as a leisure periphery, meant that the indigenous experience of Cornishness and the history on which it was grounded became part of that ‘Vanishing Cornwall’ that lies below the horizon of metropolitan visibility. Romantic notions of difference could therefore co-exist in the majority culture with ignorance of Cornwall’s place in the diverse history of the British Isles. 6.17  Twee and romantic misrepresentations at times co-exist with more clearly racist attitudes. A.A.Gill, a Sunday Times journalist, described the Cornish in 1999 as "mean" and "stunted troglodytes" who were "easily bribed" (Western Morning News, 7th September). When challenged, his editor dismissed this crude stereotyping as "the basic tools of a jobbing humorist" (letter from Richard Caseby to Amy Hale, 15th September, 1999). The victims of racist ‘jokes’ are thus accused of lacking a sense of humour, a device typical of majority racist stereotyping of minorities. Many Cornish people find both this overt racism and romantic notions of difference deeply insulting. 6.18  Furthermore, outside agencies occasionally view the Cornish as an ethnic group. Thus the Minority Rights Group produced a report on the Cornish in the 1970s. Similarly, the Commission for Racial Equality reported, in a survey of racism in the South West, on the "special characteristics of Cornwall".      In the words of one local government officer: "It is fair to alert you to the fact that there is a substantial number of indigenous Cornish people who feel themselves disadvantaged, compared with ‘incomers’, in relation to class, income, housing, employment and      various other aspects of daily living. This manifests itself in a number of ways – for example, a feeling of ‘losing out’ to incomers in the scramble for affordable housing or the search for adequately remunerated employment, as well as concern about the erosion of traditional Cornish values and communities." This being so, it is not surprising that another local government officer should have asked if the Cornish were an ethnic minority as defined by the Race Relations Act, or that, in a recent client profile produced by a citizens’ advice bureau, "some Cornish people see themselves as a distinct racial group, and were identified under our ‘other’ category". (Jay,1992,15)  And when the Commission for Racial Equality held a one-day seminar on ‘Challenging racism in the South West’ at Truro in 1995 it significantly included a presentation and discussion of the oppression of the Cornish as a group (Commission for Racial Equality, 1995, 18-21). Summary A large proportion of Cornish people identify themselves as Cornish, either as an ethnic group or as a nationality. The willingness to self-define as a nationality, in addition to the Cornwall’s historic location as a ‘Celtic’ region, are at the core of the Cornish case to be considered as a ‘historic national identity’ within the UK. Neither of these factors is found anywhere else within the administrative territory of England. More widely, the widespread classification of the Cornish as a separate group by others, along with the evidence of ‘difference’ in the cultural arena, provide an argument that the Cornish should be recognised as an ethnic community, as they meet objective criteria for inclusion as a ‘national minority’.
A refusal to understand the Cornish Case can co-exist outside Cornwall with a feeling that the Cornish are "different". Thus, in 1998, the Transport & General Workers Union accredited a delegate to represent the Cornish on the Regional Race Equality Advisory Committee. But when this delegate duly presented himself at the committee he was met by a statement accusing him of representing a "dubious case of regionalism... under concepts of pseudo-nationalism that myself and other present members do not understand, wish to understand, accept or have intention to be involved in any way or circumstance" (statement of Regional Race Equality Advisory Committee, 1998)
Cornwall County Council   has summed up the strength of the local identity in the following way... Cornwall's peripherality, geographic isolation and culture maintains a strong awareness of difference amongst the people of Cornwall of which they are fiercely proud. It is this difference which helps preserve the Cornish identity and sense of community. (Cornwall County Council, 1993, 16)