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Comparing
the size of the minority
How large is the potential Cornish ethnic group? In Cornwall
somewhere between 40% and 50% of the population are Cornish, around
200,000 to 250,000 people. This is a larger number than the total for
many ethnic groups recorded in the 1991 Census for the whole of the
UK. At that time in the UK there were:
212,000 Black
Africans
178,000 Black other
163,000 Bangladeshi
157,000 Chinese
198,000 Other Asian
people enumerated (Commission for Racial Equality, 1997) |
Measuring the problem
7.1 The UK Government regularly states, both in its Compliance Report to the
Council of
Europe and in letters from Home Office Ministers and civil servants, that
"we are not aware of any rights granted under the Convention which are
being denied to any individual in Cornwall" (HO, 1999, para 48). However,
even ignoring the fact that the Convention specifically refers to freedoms
exercised "individually as well as
in community with others" (Article 3.2), it is difficult to see on what
grounds the Government and the Home Office make their statement. This is because
no significant research has been undertaken on the position of the Cornish as a
distinct ‘national minority’ or ‘ethnic group’. In this second part of
the report we synthesise some scattered and fragmentary findings that map, in a
preliminary way, the economic, social and cultural position of the Cornish.
These provide a starting point for further funded research on this issue. We
will indicate as we proceed which articles of the Framework Convention broadly
relate to our findings.
7.2 Those who write about the contemporary position of the Cornish sometimes
note "a
measure of conscious anti-Cornish sentiment in some quarters, (but) we are
generally talking about indirect, subconscious and structural
discrimination" (Kennedy, 1995, 20). While accounts of direct
discrimination abound in oral myths and anecdotes what we will focus on here is
the evidence for claims that "widespread and structural anti-Cornish
discrimination (is) so much a part of life in
Cornwall today"(Kennedy, 18). Central to this perception of institutional
discrimination are the housing and jobs markets in Cornwall. A survey of 12
rural parishes in 1988 revealed an "undercurrent of resentment about denied
access to housing and jobs markets" (Griffiths, 1989, 168). Indeed, some
have gone so far as to claim that "the way in which the labour and housing
markets are operated is as good as a statement that the Cornish have no right to
be in Cornwall" (Saunders, cited in Deacon et.al., 1988, 162).
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