More support against Devonwall nonsense!

News from Kernow Matters To Us:

Kernow

14 Mis Du 2016

A why agas oll wheg,

Steve Double MP

Please find a link to Steve Double MP's website which very importantly contains his official response to the Devonwall nonsense. We recommend to one and all that it be read and we thank Mr. Double for drawing this to our attention:

http://stevedoubleforstaustellandnewquay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/updated-statement-from-steve-double-mp.html?m=1

This makes for pleasing reading indeed. We do remind everyone that the 1508 Charter of Pardon is still statute and that it clearly says Westminster cannot impose statute and law upon Cornwall without the authority of a Cornish government.

More support received for our campaign against Devonwall

We have now received dozens of messages of support back from the Town and Parish Councils we have written and all these objections have been sent on to the Boundary Commission. The latest is from Breage Parish Council. There is no desire for Devonwall amongst our Town and Parish Councils.

A message from the Muslim Community of Cornwall & the Quenchwell Downs Mosque

Today, we were very pleased to receive a communication from our friends in the Cornish Muslim Community and from the Mosque at Quenchwell Downs. We have asked that they kindly send this direct to the unelected Boundary commission quango. To quote from their correspondence:

"Recently I attended the Boundary Commission public consultation to watch and learn of the arguments to the commission to consider the Cornish context topography and subjectivity as a special case.

I must say as an unbiased onlooker I saw considerable passion from the speakers present and find myself agreeing with the many points.

I also found the arguments/ complaints that:

1. The boundary commission for England should have no legal right to interfere with Cornwall’s boundary as Cornwall is not part of England but is part of the UK. 

2. Considering the good people of Launceston and Devon are affected by the Devonwall idea, why was the meeting held so far from the people who would have liked to attend?

3. To hold this event on a weekday seems to be very unfair for the majority who are in work and who would have liked to come.

4. To ask the public to come to a grandiose place like the council chambers and then speak confidently under lights in front of TV cameras seems like it was very unfair and made to make it difficult for the public .

My conclusion I took back to the mosque is that the event was arranged to stymie public interaction and we feel that this action was unfair to the people of Cornwall and democracy as a whole. If we are to ask the public to speak we need to allow them to do so without pressure, this was not done at the event.

As an onlooker I found their arguments very compelling

1. It is not legal to change the borders without the Stannary parliament being informed and an active part of the process as the Stannary council precedes Cornwall Council.

2. Cornwall has the second oldest border in the world.

3  It’s against the rights of the Cornish as a minority, a status that they now have, to attempt to blend their culture in with Devon at Devonwall .

4. If you take the Isles of Scilly as a special case as has been done in other places there is no need for the Devonwall so it’s a waste of money .

5. 50,000 houses are being built and the homeless/ couch surfers that number in their thousands are as yet unregistered. This amount of people easily would make up for the 225 people missing from each constituency, so it lacks reason here also.

6. There are different overseers for Devon and Cornwall so who would be the one chosen at Devonwall? This is fraught with problems.

There were many, many good points that it shouldn’t take place so I will not try to say them all to you here but I will say that we as the BAME /English community, on considering all the facts feel that there is special case here in Cornwall for the Boundary Commission to relent with its plans to make Devonwall as we feel the assimilation of the English into Cornwall would be a divisive action that would open the doors to the far right and anti-far right activities that only serve to divide communities, and this exercise seems to serve the Boundary Commission of England, the Tory Party, and right wing elements in its assimilation of Cornwall at the cost of the vibrant diverse communities that we now make up.

With this in mind, we at Quenchwell Mosque are now very willing to campaign with our Cornish brothers to protect their borders and culture that we have come to love as an inclusive region of the UK and we hope that you see the backing of the Cornish by the BAME/English community will draw a lot of attention to the boundary commission and England on a global scale.

You see, the world is a diverse place ad to assimilate a people by changing its borders with its larger neighbour is similar action that happened with the Mau Mau in Kenya / the Native Americans / Poland from the Nazis and too many special diverse nations to mention.

We feel that the Commission is actually giving itself a job that they have to revisit every two years and what is the cost of this action to the taxpayer we ask? These are dark times of Brexit. We do not need the English extremist right or Islamic right wing having any reason to cause division here in Cornwall just because of 1100 people which is the size of the Isles of Scilly (and who are here already unregistered )

This place is the only place in the UK that the right wing do not march and to merge borders will bring English attitudes into Cornish towns and sow the seeds of division and for this we B,A,M,E organisations strongly protest .

If you see the full history of England constantly seeming to absorb Cornwall step by step, you will see that to change the border for a region that has had this border for longer that the UK has existed is an obvious attempt to water down the Cornish culture, uniqueness and bring in the English cultures of racism, empire and constant aggressions to a peaceful, quiet, welcoming people.

So without restraint we say as English black people in Cornwall that we will resist border changes at Devonwall and in future campaign with our Cornish brothers and sisters more ardently to resist the assimilation of Cornwall by England and the first and last thing to protect are its borders.

What we need to see is a Boundary Commission that is transparent in its attempt to work within its remit without unfair attempts to help the English regions assimilate with the Cornish, as it has been rightly seen to not interfere with the Welsh or Scottish.

Cornwall is an inclusive region of the UK and though quiet I assure you the passion here is one of preparation for a long haul campaign to resist any changes at Devonwall."

Further offer of financed legal opposition

We have received another message offering financed legal support. An extract follows:

"I hope you don't mind me reaching out - I was wondering if your group had considered a bringing a legal challenge against this decision, if it does go ahead. I'm part of the support team at CrowdJustice (www.crowdjustice.org), a crowdfunding platform built specifically for legal cases. 

I'm sure that the strong public feeling around this issue would make crowdfunding with us a really powerful option for your group to raise funds to pay for any potential legal action, or even just to get a first opinion of whether a challenge could be bought. For your reference, here's a case that recently raised over £25,000 to bring a judicial review on the government awarding a contract to Southern Rail: https://www.crowdjustice.co.uk/case/southernrail/ "

We are holding back on this until matters resolve themselves at Cornwall Council whose Leader, Cllr (Ind) John Pollard has pledged that Cornwall Council would fight this unlawful nonsense to the end.

Sajid Javid MP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VuDH6xGXSk

This silly little man's remarks continue to cause huge ongoing anger in our community. Branded as 'discourteous and incompetent' by the Speaker of their dysfunctional Westminster House of Commons, we have been given to understand that the Cornish business community are working on a response to his silly and ill thought out imperialist rubbish. Meanwhile, we have been asked to enclose a photograph of a newly liveried local bus and to invite Javid to condemn this as failing to fit into his vision of a bland and compliant community. The words written in our language reads: 'Your local bus service' 'Go Cornwall bus' This is the language that the Westminster government refuses to support in clear breach of the agreement of 2002 and which has caused us to write to virtually every overseas Government in order to flag what we have to put up with and seeking financial support. Our first letters have been sent to the Embassies of the USA, Russia and China with a larger batch to follow later in the week. Sajid Javid is no longer welcome in Cornwall and if we find he is due to come, we have been approached to attempt to organise disruption to his visit in a peaceful but defiant way!

Kernow kensa ha dhe hes! Kernow bys vyken!

John, Teresa, Craig, Tony, Matt, Mike, Clive, Ronan , Samuel & Mark

Elected Members of the KMTU Steering Group

Our bio: Our Steering Group members are a mirror of our wider membership. Of all ages, skin colours, ethnic backgrounds, countries of residence, occupations, vocations and professions, religious beliefs, political persuasions, sexual orientations and gender identification, we are drawn together by a common cause. We believe that Cornwall matters.