Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament
Encyclopedia
The Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament (Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

: Seneth an Stenegow Kernow), is a pressure group which claims to be a revival of the historic Cornish Stannary Parliament
Stannary Courts and Parliaments
The Stannary Parliaments and Stannary Courts were legislative and legal institutions in Cornwall and in Devon , England. The Stannary Courts administered equity for the region's tin-miners and tin mining interests, and they were also courts of record for the towns dependent on the mines...

 last held in 1753. It was established in 1974 and has campaigned since then against the government of the United Kingdom's position on the constitutional status of Cornwall
Constitutional status of Cornwall
Cornwall is currently administered as a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England.However, a number of organisations and individuals question the constitutional basis for the administration of Cornwall as part of England, arguing that the Duchy Charters of 1337 place the governance of...

.

Status

The historic Cornish Stannary Parliament last assembled at Truro in 1752, and continued until 11 September 1753. The CSP formed in 1974 claims continuity from the historic parliament on the grounds that the English legal system does not recognise desuetude
Desuetude
In law, desuetude is a doctrine that causes statutes, similar legislation or legal principles to lapse and become unenforceable by a long habit of non-enforcement or lapse of time. It is what happens to laws that are not repealed when they become obsolete...

 (laws lapsing through lack of use), and cites the precedent of the Court of Chivalry
Court of Chivalry
Her Majesty's High Court of Chivalry of England and Wales is a civil court in England. It has had jurisdiction in cases of the misuse of heraldic arms since the fourteenth century....

, which sat in 1952 for the first time in over 200 years. Their contention is that the Stannary Parliament, whilst not in session, still exists. They also point to the fact that the 1508 Charter of Pardon from which the historic parliament derived its powers, was confirmed as still being on the statute books in 1977.

The British government rejects the claims of the group. In March 2007, Bridget Prentice
Bridget Prentice
Bridget Theresa Prentice is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Lewisham East from 1992 to 2010, She was formerly married to fellow Labour MP Gordon Prentice, whom she married on 20 December 1975 and divorcing in 2000.- Background :Prentice was born in Glasgow,...

, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
A Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the government of the United Kingdom, junior to both a Minister of State and a Secretary of State....

 in the Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Justice (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Justice is a ministerial department of the UK Government headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, who is responsible for improvements to the justice system so that it better serves the public...

 stated in a written answer in the House of Commons "...there are no valid Cornish stannary organisations in existence.", "There are no treaties today that apply to Cornwall only..." and that " There is no special status for legislation which applies to Cornwall or to Cornish localities."
This was also confirmed in a reply to a question posed by the MP Andrew George in May 2009.

History

On 20 May 1974 a pressure group claiming to be a revived Cornish Stannary Parliament assembled in Lostwithiel
Lostwithiel
Lostwithiel is a civil parish and small town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom at the head of the estuary of the River Fowey. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,739...

. The group interpreted the 1508 charter as applying to all descendents of Cornish tin-miners and claimed that they had the power to veto all laws made in Westminster
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

, not only those relating to the tin and mineral industries. The meeting was primarily called in response to a crisis in the china clay industry. Employers in the industry had been forbidden by the Pay Board from paying their 9,000 workers the higher wages agreed under a productivity deal. The Warden of the Stannaries, Geoffrey Waldegrave, 12th Earl Waldegrave
Geoffrey Waldegrave, 12th Earl Waldegrave
Geoffrey Noel Waldegrave, 12th Earl Waldegrave KG GCVO TD , known as Viscount Chewton from 1933 to 1936, was a British peer and agriculturist....

 refused an invitation to open the parliament.

On 24 June at a meeting at which the stannators wore kilts of Cornish tartan, and at which the Cornish national anthem
The Song of the Western Men
"The Song of the Western Men" was written by Robert Stephen Hawker. It is also known by the title of "Trelawny".Hawker wrote the song in 1824, telling of events that took place in 1688. When the song first appeared many thought it to be a contemporary record of events, although in fact the song...

 was played, the group proclaimed eighteen articles or acts, including the claim to retain all taxes gathered in the Duchy, the declaration of St Piran's flag to be the national flag, a claim on all mineral rights including oil and natural gas, and sought to reverse recent local government reorganisation. A petition was sent to the queen declaring that if she did not recognise the parliament they would seize crown lands and properties. They also sought recognition from the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

.

On 12 December 1974 the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 replied to the petition, saying that the Home Office could accept elections by the stannary towns only as constitutive of a valid Stannary Parliament. On 15 December, Brian Hambley, using the title "Lord Protector of the Stannaries", said they had decided to postpone the seizure of property in St Austell
St Austell
St Austell is a civil parish and a major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the south coast approximately ten miles south of Bodmin and 30 miles west of the border with Devon at Saltash...

 to give the four town councils an opportunity to appoint stannators. Hambley claimed there was a constitutional crisis and this should be done "immediately to avoid political anarchy".

The Cornish Stannary Parliament next hit the headlines in 1978, again at St Austell Magistrate's Court. Hambley had been charged with having failed to pay motor tax and displaying the stannary seal in place of a tax disc. His defence was that he was exempt from the court's jurisdiction as he was a "privileged tinner", having staked out several acres of moorland with a view to working them for tin on land belonging to the lord-lieutenant of the county. After two and a half hours consultation the magistrates agreed they had no jurisdiction. The following day a court in Bodmin adjourned a similar case sine die against Frederick Trull. On 11 July, the county court
County Court
A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of county courts held by the High Sheriff of each county.-England and Wales:County Court matters can be lodged...

 (which had the powers of the old stannary courts, under the Stannaries Court (Abolition) Act 1896), declared that the lands Hambley claimed to have staked were already bounded, and ordered him to pay the landowners' costs. By the end of July over a hundred people were refusing to pay road tax in Cornwall, but a decision of the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

 gave the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 leave to quash the original magistrate's decision.

The Cornish Stannary Parliament's next large campaign was in 1989, and related to the introduction of the unpopular community charge
Community Charge
The Community Charge, popularly known as the "poll tax", was a system of taxation introduced in replacement of the rates to part fund local government in Scotland from 1989, and England and Wales from 1990. It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the...

 or poll tax. They claimed that as the law imposing the charge had not been approved by the Stannary Parliament "all tin-miners and former tin-miners, all descendants of tin-miners, all shareholders in tin-mines and anyone who supplied equipment for tin-mining" were exempt from the tax. Shares were made available for sale in the Royal Cornish Consols United Tin Mines Cost Book Company at one pound each, the claim being that shareholders would not be liable for the charge. The company was owned by Frederick Trull, who had rejoined the group as its clerk. By March 1990 up to one and a quarter million applications for shares had been made. On 22 March the Department of Trade and Industry was granted an injunction in the High Court freezing the company's assets on the grounds that the company was not registered under the Companies Act 1985
Companies Act 1985
The Companies Act 1985 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, enacted in 1985, which enabled companies to be formed by registration, and set out the responsibilities of companies, their directors and secretaries.The Act was a consolidation of...

 and that Mr Trull was not authorised under the Financial Services Act 1986
Financial Services Act 1986
The Financial Services Act 1986 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the government of Margaret Thatcher to regulate the financial services industry. The Act used a mixture of governmental regulation and self-regulation, and created a Securities and Investments Board ...

 to conduct investment business. On 27 June the company was placed in receivership, with shareholders potentially facing the payment of costs.
On 5 September the receiver announced that Trull had vanished and that there was no trace of the estimated £1 million paid by members of the public. On 12 October Trull was found guilty of contempt by breaching High Court orders to stop issuing shares and for failing to disclose the whereabouts of the money. He was sentenced in his absence to six months imprisonment. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Harman, said "The matter may be based on a genuine belief by Mr Trull in the privileges of Cornish tin miners but has all the appearance of being a con trick." On 22 February 1991, Trull appeared before the High Court, and his sentence was reduced to three months and suspended for two years, on the condition that he undertook to help the Department of Trade and Industry recover the money invested by the public. Mr Trull's counsel, told the court that the money had gone to "the sharks of this world" and that Mr Trull was "fired not by dishonesty, but by obsessive belief in the Stannary laws". Mr Trull remained clerk of the parliament and in November was again before the courts claiming the Bodmin magistrates had no jurisdiction to make orders for payment against him on behalf of Restormel
Restormel
Restormel was a borough of Cornwall, United Kingdom, one of the six administrative divisions that made up the county. Its council was based in St Austell . Other towns included Newquay....

 Borough Council as 'a privileged tinner within the Stannaries of Cornwall.' The case was finally settled against Mr Trull in 1994.

Operation Chough

In 1999 the Cornish Stannary Parliament commenced a new direct action campaign they termed "Operation Chough". The organisation wrote to English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 ordering them to remove all signs bearing that title from sites in Cornwall by 31 July. Over eleven months eighteen signs were removed from sites in Cornwall including Carn Euny
Carn Euny
Carn Euny is an archaeological site near Sancreed, on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom with considerable evidence of both Iron Age and post-Iron Age settlement. Excavations on this site have shown that there was activity at Carn Euny as early as the Neolithic period...

, Chysauster, Pendennis Castle
Pendennis Castle
Pendennis Castle is a Henrician castle, also known as one of Henry VIII's Device Forts, in the English county of Cornwall. It was built in 1539 for King Henry VIII to guard the entrance to the River Fal on its west bank, near Falmouth. St Mawes Castle is its opposite number on the east bank and...

 and Tintagel
Tintagel
Tintagel is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The population of the parish is 1,820 people, and the area of the parish is ....

. The "Keeper of the Seal of the Stannary Parliament" wrote to English Heritage saying "The signs have been confiscated and held as evidence of English cultural aggression in Cornwall. Such racially motivated signs are deeply offensive and cause distress to many Cornish people". On 18 January 2002, at Truro Crown Court, three members of the group agreed to return the signs and pay £4,500 in compensation to English Heritage and to be bound over to keep the peace. In return, the prosecution dropped charges of conspiracy to cause criminal damage. The case was unusual as a Public Interest Immunity
Public Interest Immunity
Public-interest immunity is a principle of English common law under which the English courts can grant a court order allowing one litigant to refrain from disclosing evidence to the other litigants where disclosure would be damaging to the public interest...

 Certificate was presented to the court by the Crown Prosecution Service after about ten minutes of the hearing. A possible reason for the introduction of the PII certificate, given by the Stannary Parliament, was that the Duchy of Cornwall
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at the time of his birth, or of his parent's succession to the throne. If the monarch has no son, the...

 refuses to reveal the circumstances under which it transferred several of its properties (including Tintagel Castle
Tintagel Castle
Tintagel Castle is a medieval fortification located on the peninsula of Tintagel Island, adjacent to the village of Tintagel in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The site was possibly occupied in the Romano-British period, due to an array of artefacts dating to this period which have been found on the...

) to the care of English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

.

The name Operation Chough is now used for an unrelated project to reintroduce the chough
Chough
The Red-billed Chough or Chough , Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, is a bird in the crow family; it is one of only two species in the genus Pyrrhocorax...

 to Cornwall.

Elections

Elections to Revived Cornish Stannary are from among the Cornish Stannary Community. To be a member of the Cornish Stannary Community you have to declare that "I am Cornish as one of my parents is of direct indigenous Cornish descent or I am Cornish by marriage, and that therefore, I consider myself to be an "heir and successor" of the Cornish Stannary Community who secured the Charter of Pardon from King Henry VII in 1508". The elected officers of the Cornish Stannary Parliament are not published. There is a further organisation attached to CSP, known as the Cornish Citizens Association which has a more inclusive membership policy not based on race.

CSP claims

The CSP are campaigning against the lack of a written constitutional text to protect British 'subjects' from abuse of power by the state and have highlighted the absence of a British constitutional/statutory guarantee of the principle of equality before the law (cf Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...

). They have raised concerns with the British government  regarding the failure by the state to include Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...

 in its Human Rights Act 1998
Human Rights Act 1998
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 9 November 1998, and mostly came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim is to "give further effect" in UK law to the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights...

, the failure by the state to ratify Protocol 12 of the ECHR, the failure by the state to incorporate the European Directive 2000/43/EC on Anti-discrimination
Directive 2000/43/EC on Anti-discrimination
The EU Racial Equality Directive implements the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin...

 into domestic legislation by introducing what the CSP claim is the inadequate Statutory Instrument 1626. They have also raised concerns regarding the retention of an unelected head of state and associated upper chamber of parliament (House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

), and the retention of what the CSP claim is an archaic and undemocratic Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

.

The CSP claim that Cornish people
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...

 are subject to forced assimilation by an education system that fails to provide them with an adequate level of knowledge about their history and, hence, their identity. They also claim that there are persistent attempts by state authorities to deny Cornish people their identity, for example, in the national census, pupil level annual school census, exclusion from the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed on February 1995 by 22 member States of the Council of Europe ....

, and denial of adequate financial cultural/linguistic resources.

The organisation's website claims that the group has been active in seeking repayment of alleged over taxation on tin mined in Cornwall, and to have lodged documents with the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

.

Overpayment invoice

According to their website the CSP sent an invoice to the Duchy of Cornwall
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at the time of his birth, or of his parent's succession to the throne. If the monarch has no son, the...

 for the sum of £20,067,900,000 claiming recovery of alleged overcharged taxation on tin production by the Duchy of Cornwall on 15 May 2000. The claim was based on the higher taxation (or "coinage") rates levied on Cornish tin compared to that mined in Devon. In order to calculate the bill, historical production figures were derived from a privately published undergraduate thesis of 1908. The CSP document claims a racial motive for overcharging Celtic
Celtic nations
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic languages and some cultural traits have survived.The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common traditional identity and culture and are identified with a traditional...

 Cornwall.

Other actions

  • The CSP are campaigning, along with other Cornish organisations, for the Cornish to be recognised by the UK Government under the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
    Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
    The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed on February 1995 by 22 member States of the Council of Europe ....

    .
  • The CSP campaigned, along with Mebyon Kernow
    Mebyon Kernow
    Mebyon Kernow is a left-of-centre political party in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It primarily campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly, as well as social democracy and environmental protection.MK was formed as a pressure group in 1951, and contained as members activists...

     and other Cornish organisations for the inclusion of a Cornish tick box on the 2011 Census
    United Kingdom Census 2011
    The most recent census of the United Kingdom, known as the 2011 census, took place on 27 March 2011, a decade after the previous census. It was conducted on the same day in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure coherence and consistency...

    , although this was not successful and the forms as issued did not include a Cornish tick box. For the first time the Cornish were allocated the '06' census code for the 2001 Census but there have been claims that the actual number of people registering as Cornish would have been much higher if a Cornish option tick box had been included. 37,500 people wrote that they had Cornish ethnicity on the 2001 census form. The CSP claim that many Cornish people were unaware of the new option and the figures would have been much higher if the tick-box was available.

See also

  • List of topics related to Cornwall
  • Cornish conspiracy theory
  • Cornwall 2000
    Cornwall 2000
    Cornwall 2000 is a Cornish nationalist pressure group based in Bodmin, Cornwall, United Kingdom. The group was formed by John Angarrack, who has authored revisionist books on the history of Cornwall and has participated in the Cornish nationalist scene. The organisation is headquartered at John...


External links

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