From time to time, visitors wander into the tourist information centre in Launceston and don’t realise they have crossed the border from Devon into Cornwall. “They soon do,” said assistant Ruth Maunder. “We put them right – but in a nice way. We are proud to be Cornish. That’s the end of it.”
So it’s no surprise that proposed changes to parliamentary boundaries that would create a new “Devonwall” constituency, cutting across the 1,000-year-old border between Cornwall and Devon and including this ancient Cornish capital, are not going down well. “We’ve nothing against people from Devon,” explained Maunder. “But we want to stay Cornish.”
The mayor of Launceston, Brian Hogan, summed up the mood as angry. “The people of Cornwall have fought long and hard to preserve their sense of identity. They are not keen on centuries of history being chucked out because of red tape. There’s a lot of anger around here. Cornwall is passionate about its own identity.”
Under the boundary commission’s proposals, the new constituency would include the Cornish towns of Launceston and Bude – plus the north Devon port of Bideford – and myriad villages and hamlets in between.
Cornish politicians, community leaders and artists are up in arms. Cornwall council is claiming the concept is illegal and is urging a rethink. Activists are discussing direct action, which could include organising a blockade of roads between Devon and Cornwall.
Jake Jackson, the curator of the Lawrence House Museum in Launceston, may not man the barricades but is upset about the plans.
“I think it’s wrong,” he said. “I think it’s a great shame the powers that be couldn’t organise this to take into account the proper, traditional boundary. The Cornish are very aware of their separateness. It’s in the blood.
“There’s a great deal of disillusionment with politicians at the moment here at the periphery of the kingdom. [Cornwall voted strongly in favour of Brexit even though it benefits significantly from EU money.] This isn’t going to endear the Cornish people to politicians.”
The campaign group Kernow Matters to Us (Kernow is the Cornish name for Cornwall) said it had been contacted by many people from Launceston and Bude who were upset at the proposals. A spokesperson said an action plan would be released and the idea of blockading roads had been raised.
The grand bard of Cornwall, Merv Davey, has written to the minister for the constitution, Chris Skidmore, calling for him to intervene. “The cross-border constituency is wrong whether you look at it from a historical, heritage, constitutional or modern democratic viewpoint,” he said.
“I would ask all people, whether Cornish-born or Cornish of heart, to write to the government asking for the legislation to be amended to recognise Cornwall and allow the boundary commission to keep Kernow whole.”
The Cornish nature writer Natasha Carthew suggested on Twitter she would take direct action against the move.
If the #Devonwall proposal goes through today I'll be marching up the M5 - who's with me? @MebyonKernow #Kernow https://t.co/02WXJ3MAug
— Natasha Carthew (@natashacarthew) September 13, 2016
While some were plotting road blocks or M5 marches, Cornwall council officers in Truro were poring over the details of the proposals before consultation hearings took place in November.
The council leader, John Pollard, said he was totally opposed to the plans, which he branded “inequitable and unlawful”.
He said he believed there was a “serious legal and constitutional conflict” between the boundary changes and the relatively recent recognition of the Cornish as a national minority.
“There are cultural, legal, geographic and political reasons to maintain our border in terms of parliamentary representation,” Pollard said. “We must work with the community to coordinate the opposition to this proposal.”
The boundary commission has said it is sensitive to the strength of feeling about the Cornish border but that the numbers do not add up. “It is simply not possible to develop a proposal under which five whole constituencies ... are contained within the county boundary ... Consequently, our proposals include one constituency that crosses the boundary between these two counties.” It said this was unavoidable under the rules.
Dick Cole, the leader of the political party Mebyon Kernow, which is campaigning for a national assembly for Cornwall, described the idea as a “travesty of history, democracy and Cornwall’s very nationhood”.
He said: “We need to build a massive campaign to put pressure on central government and MPs to modify the existing legislation to ensure that Cornish constituencies remain whole and lie entirely within the boundaries of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.”
Cole argued that the recognition of the Cornish as a national minority with the same status as other Celtic people, such as the Welsh, Scottish and Irish, meant that – as in Wales, Scotland and Ireland – the boundary should remain intact.
Referring to the river that forms most of the border between Cornwall and Devon, he said: “The creation of a cross-Tamar seat would be an unprecedented disaster, breaching the very territorial integrity of the historic nation of Cornwall.”
