my speech to the #MKconf

I’m here to introduce the policies Mebyon Kernow- the Party for Cornwall will fight this election on. The principles upon which we will use to show the people of Cornwall that we are a serious party, presenting serious policies and a serious alternative for voters in this crucial general election.

One of Bodmin’s most famous sons was Thomas Flamank. Despite the fact he probably wasn’t a firebrand, he was a lawyer by trade. Flamank came to lead the great Cornish uprising of 1497, with a man from west Cornwall called Myghal Josef An Gof. A St Keverne man, a black smith. We can easily conjure an image of a passionate, determined and strong man.

A smart and gentle man from the east and a brave man from the west joined together, united Cornwall and led a fearsome army of One and All. They marched on the English capital and struck fear into the heart of the establishment.

Although in Bodmin today we might not be handing out swords and bows. Mebyon Kernow is planning with your help, in uniting the people of Cornwall once again and striking the same fear as 1497 into the establishment.

Thomas Flamank that famous son of Bodmin was legendary for his last words:

“Speak the truth and only than you can be free of your chains”

518 years on from our great forebears, we conference, gathered here today, are aiming for these same ideals.

Mebyon Kernow policies address the truth of the political and economic situation in Cornwall today, and we speak it loud and clear. Exposing the truths the other parties will not face up to.  

The Westminster parties will tell tales of how they are so different from each other. That a vote for one will keep the other out. Ignoring the fact that on the key issues in policies and records there is little difference between these parties. All of them lack ambition for Cornwall and the desire to change policies to forge the Cornwall that the public are crying out for.

They say no speech is complete without a joke, well here’s one: the Westminster parties are all, at this election in favour, of devolving more powers to Cornwall. If you believe that you’ll believe anything!

Despite years of centralisation to Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol and of course London and taking more and more public decisions into private hands, they make these hollow election time promises. Despite their records of trying to impose the pasty tax and Devonwall onto Cornwall, are we now seriously to believe that the Conservatives an Liberal Democrats recognise we are different? and that they will respect this?

The truth is, none of the other parties are serious about devolution. They know the people of Cornwall desire to be free of the dead hand of central government, yet in power they continue to protect the structures and elites that harm Cornwall.

Mebyon Kernow recently launched our plans for devolution in the document Towards a National Assembly for Cornwall. Despite not having the millions of the Westminster parties, we put them to shame by showing professionalism and maturity producing this great document and campaigning on issues *unlike them* outside of election time.

We passionately believe that devolution to a national assembly will unlock Cornish potential. It will allow Cornwall to spread our wings, to find our own solutions and to grow together as a community. There are so many rich opportunities to be developed, with our natural resources and the talents of the people of Cornwall, we need to take powers from central government and bring them home, to unleash this potential.

MK has always been at the sharp end of positive change for Cornwall, for example, we were arguing for a Cornish university before anyone else. We are the ones with a vision of forging a new Cornwall, a just society, with decent public services, decent affordable housing and decent opportunities for One and All.

We need to shout loud and clear at this election, that a vote for Mebyon Kernow is the only real prospect of getting more powers for Cornwall.

One of the central themes of both our assembly document and our recent policy announcement is our desire to devolve the planning system to Cornwall. To take all of the decisions taken by politicians, ministers and planning inspectors, to here west of the Tamar where they belong. To remodel planning policies and procedures to suit Cornwall and work in the interests of the people.

Mebyon Kernow wants a planning system that Kow Tows not to developers and the interests of profit but Kow Tows to the people of Cornwall. So we can be masters of our own destiny, decide what planning policies we want and what housing numbers suit us.

The present centralised planning system favours developers and works hard for their needs and wants. Yet it ignores the needs and wants of our communities. The present planning policies do nothing to stop unsustainable development on green fields of houses unaffordable on the average Cornish wage.

Planning also presents us with so called affordable housing. There is no better indicator that the housing system is completely broken, than this farce. We need fundamental changes to have real affordable housing. To stop the brain drain of young people moving to England were house prices bear some relation to wages.

Then there’s second homes, a problem that gets worse year on year. We suffer from politicians that seem either unwilling or unable to actually sort this abomination out.

The truth is we need to make our own decisions here in Cornwall to stop this extravagant use of our housing. We can not rely on decision makers, hundreds of miles away. That, let’s face it are a lot more likely to own a second house in Cornwall than know what the affect on our communities and house prices are.

The truth is the planning and housing policies of Westminster fail Cornwall. We need at this election to send a clear message, that we the people of Cornwall have had enough and we will not be ignored.

All of the Westminster parties and I include UKIP in this, are signed up to austerity. Despite the obvious fact that it does not work for the people of Cornwall and is not bringing us growth. The cuts continue to widen the gap between rich and poor. Here in Cornwall, our own inequality gap between average earnings and house prices continues to widen.  Cornwall is still one of the least economically active parts of Europe. Yet the cuts continue.

Cornwall’s front line public services are paying a heavy toll for this neo liberal cuts agenda. That the Tories, Lib Dems, Labour and UKIP embrace with such zeal, blind and deaf to the damage it is causing. Leaving places like Cornwall with public services that are not fit for a first world country.

Mebyon Kernow MPs will join with our sister parties Plaid Cymru and the SNP and plead, argue and fight against more damaging cuts. Say no to austerity and yes to fairness, equality and decent public services.

Compounding the affect of the cuts is the fact that Cornwall has suffered from underfunding by successive governments for decades. All of our public services suffer from this unfairness. From our schools, to our social services, our NHS, our Devonwall police force. The time has come to say enough is enough and demand fairness for Cornwall.

I have not gone through every MK policy line by line. I could be here all day talking about the policies Cornwall needs to fight low wages and high house prices. To address the fundamental inequalities in our society. To bring more decisions under democratic control. To say no to the great sell off of our public services. Deliver a stadium for Cornwall. How we need a zero waste strategy. Deliver a public transport network fit for this century, Scrap trident and so the list goes on.

I started off this speech quoting the great Cornishman Thomas Flamank:

“Speak the truth and only then can you be free of your chains.”

We may not be fighting a rebellion and risking our lives in this election campaign. But Mebyon Kernow is fighting for Cornwall and the stakes are just as high, for the life and soul of the Cornwall we all love. We need to free Cornwall from the dead hand of Westminster and devolve power here, and we need free our nation from the dead hand of Westminster politics.

We need the freedom to grow, to allow imagination and ambition into decision making and free ourselves from the uncaring central government and it’s policies and prescriptions that are apathetic to Cornwall’s needs and wants.

CORNWALL NEEDS CHANGE, we all know that, it is why we are all here. I urge all of you to look in your hearts and whether there you find a ferocious character like An Gof or a gentle one like Flamank. Ask yourselves what you can do to embody their spirit and what you can do to fight for Cornwall and join Mebyon Kernow in this election campaign in breaking the chains.

The road to May starts with the Mebyon Kernow conference and engaging more

This sunday is the Mebyon Kernow conference. Every party conference is an important one,  The focus this year is engagement, the conference is a great time to see more of a party and find it's members, spokespersons and leadership all in one place ready to speak to people. It's a time to inform policy, hold debates and engage with both the membership and the public. Below is a blog with some of my thoughts about the conference and a link to the agenda for sunday's event.

This conference is more important than most. For a number of reasons: firstly there's the general election looming large on the horizon, make no mistake this is the most unpredictable election in a long long time. Opinion polls reveal there is a record low of people that will vote for Labour and Tory next May. The polls also tell us only a fraction more voters will vote Lib Dem next year (across the UK) then will vote for the SNP (just in Scotland). The three big parties will try to make out that this election is a contest between them, the reality says something completely different. The opportunity for Mebyon Kernow to make a mark is huge.

Secondly the issue of devolution has never been higher on the agenda. The time to push for ambitious devolution and for Cornwall to have the say on what powers we want, rather than politicians in London deciding, is now. Government occasionally glances it's eye over devolution, but these opportunities do not happen that often. At previous times, like when Labour was in power last, Cornwall got nothing our voices were not heard by the powers that be. There is not greater time then now to make our voices heard and we need to look to members of the party to help us do that.

These things combined, now is the time for Mebyon Kernow to step up. To think harder about how we do things, work harder and smarter and make our impact on politics. To be honest and to be frank this is not an easy thing to do, as unpopular as they are at the moment the 'Westminster' parties dwarf us in terms of budget, organisation and paid staff (of which we have none). Add to this people are very familiar with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Labour, turn on the tv to watch the news and they'll be there. David versus Goliath seems a worthy example to draw here but in fact our sling is not aimed at one Goliath it's aimed at a number of them. We have to be better at engaging people, both voters and supporters of the party. We don't have the easy option of a top down campaign reliant on huge sums of money for advertising and a regular slot on the news. We have to be bottom up, we have to learn from the Scottish independence campaign that their 45% of yes voters were won against the odds, by a grass roots campaign. We don't have the big corporate donors of Tory, Lib Dem and Labour we need to look instead to hard work.

With that in mind the format of the conference is different this year. There's still the engagement we do very well as a party and we're one of those rare beasts in politics these days that decides policy based on debate and voting by the membership. Added to that we've cut down on the number of speeches and the focus of the afternoon session -which is open to the public- is engagement.  Starting at 2 it kicks off with a keynote speech from Dick Cole. There then follows a roundtable discussion with Mebyon Kernow's parliamentary candidates on the implications of the Scottish independence referendum and the campaign for a Cornish Assembly. I think it will be a good opportunity for us (meaning specifically Andrew Long, Loveday Jenkin, Stephen Richardson and myself) to explain how we view things and to see what the conference thinks.

In the second part there follows a more open discussion with the same candidates on Mebyon Kernow priorities for the general election campaign. This part I'm looking forward to most and I have little doubt it will be a robust debate with people that want the party going in one direction or another making their case for it. Politics is a complicated subject, although MK is borne out of being what is essentially a single issue party there are many things officials of the party and members care about.

Looking at the morning session there are 3 motions to conference, the first is on sport and the need for investment and better facilities in Cornwall. The second is votes for young people, which I will be seconding and speaking on, which seeks to get 16 and 17 years old the right to vote. The third is reversing the devastating austerity cuts to Cornwall. As you can see these are 3 complicated and varied issues. I hope the motions all pass, these are 3 things I care about deeply. That said, they are not the only issues. That's why I will find the second roundtable discussion the most fascinating and I hope to learn the most from it. I sincerely hope party members are active in this discussion and members of the public, to tease out the issues and indeed strategies and make the party better.

Here's a link to the agenda and the venue is of course Lys Kernow (New County Hall) in the main chamber, more details and directions here.