Cornish Assembly
A Cornish Assembly () is a proposed devolved law-making assembly for Cornwall along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) and the Northern Ireland Assembly in the United Kingdom. The campaign for Cornish devolution began in 2000 with the founding of the Cornish Constitutional Convention, a cross-party, cross-sector association that campaigns for devolution to Cornwall. In 2001, the Convention sent 50,000 individually signed declarations calling for a Cornish Assembly to 10 Downing Street, during the then-government's attempt at introducing regional assemblies, however the call went unanswered. The act of turning Cornwall County Council into a unitary authority in 2009 was based on the idea that it would give Cornwall a stronger voice and be a "stepping stone" to a Cornish Assembly, and a "Government of Cornwall" bill was introduced to the UK Parliament in the same year by Cornish MP Dan Rogerson, but did not succeed. Following the announcement of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and with promises of more devolution across the UK from Westminster politicians, there were renewed calls for devolution to Cornwall. In November 2014 a petition was launched on the government petitions website campaigning for a Cornish Assembly. A law-making Cornish Assembly is party policy for the Liberal Democrats, Mebyon Kernow, the Yorkshire Party, and the Greens. Background Cornwall enjoyed a level of self-government until 1753 through its Stannary Parliament. The privileges of the stannaries were confirmed on the creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337, and strengthened by the 1508 Charter of Pardon, which came after the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 was partly instigated by anger over Henry VII's overturning of stannary rights to wage war against Scotland (see also Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament). Laws and maps of the time mentioned "Anglia et Cornubia" (England and Cornwall). With the decline of the Cornish language blurring the distinction between Cornish people and English people in the eyes of central government, Cornwall began to be administered as a county of England. Cornwall County Council was created by the Local Government Act 1888. At the same time, the Celtic revival saw the emergence of Cornish nationalism. Although it was mainly concerned with culture in its early days, some inspiration was taken from the movements for Irish, Welsh and Scottish home rule, with a Cornish newspaper declaring in 1912, "There is another Home Rule movement on the horizon. Self-government for Cornwall will be the next move". The Cornish political party Mebyon Kernow was formed in 1951, calling for greater autonomy in what it hoped would become a federal UK. Post Second World War Cornwall became increasingly linked with Devon in an economic, political and statistical sense (more recently this process has become known as "Devonwall-isation"), symbolised by the merging of Devon and Cornwall Police in 1967. With entry into the European Economic Community and the prospect of receiving European development funds, there was mounting evidence that the unpopular Devonwall process significantly disadvantaged Cornwall. Devon's relative wealth overshadowed Cornwall's low GDP and high deprivation, meaning that