page_title: Mebyon Kernow
section_title: Cornish Assembly Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Mebyon Kernow / History / Relaunch (1990s) / Cornish Assembly Campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: Facsimile of the paper petition issued by Mebyon Kernow, calling for a Cornish Assembly, it attracted over 50,000 signatures.
context_page_description: Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall is a Cornish nationalist, centre-left political party in Cornwall, a county in the southwestern United Kingdom. It currently has four elected councillors on Cornwall Council, and several town and parish councillors across the county.
  Influenced by the growth of Cornish nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century, Mebyon Kernow formed as a pressure group in 1951. Helena Charles was its first chair, while the novelist Daphne du Maurier was another early member. In 1953 Charles won a seat on a local council, although lost it in 1955. Support for MK grew in the 1960s in opposition to growing migration into Cornwall from other parts of England. In the 1970s, MK became a fully-fledged political party, and since then it has fielded candidates in elections to the House of Commons and the European Parliament, as well as local government in Cornwall. Infighting during the 1980s decimated the party but it revived in the 1990s.
  Ideologically positioned on the centre-left of British politics, the central tenet of Mebyon Kernow's platform is Cornish nationalism.
context_section_description: On 5 March 2000, MK launched a petition for a Cornish Assembly. This was modelled from the "Declaration for a Cornish Assembly", which stated that:
  Cornwall is a distinct region. It has a clearly defined economic, administrative and social profile. Cornwall's unique identity reflects its Celtic character, culture and environment. We declare that the people of Cornwall will be best served in their future governance by a Cornish regional assembly. We therefore commit ourselves to setting up the Cornish Constitutional Convention with the intention of achieving a devolved Cornish Assembly.
  — Senedh Kernow
  Three months later the Cornish Constitutional Convention was held with the objective of establishing a devolved Assembly. Within fifteen months, Mebyon Kernow's petition attracted the signatures of over 50,000 people calling for a referendum on a Cornish Assembly, which was a little over 10% of the total Cornish electorate. A delegation including Cole, Andrew George, then the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, and representatives of the Convention presented the Declaration to 10 Downing Street on 12 December 2001.
caption: Picture of Mebyon Kernow's assembly petition
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