Across these over 700 islands, national identity is being reshaped. Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum reignited a sense of nationhood that has only grown stronger, with the SNP firmly established in the political landscape. Despite their defeat in the 2024 General Election and ongoing internal challenges, the SNP remains a key player on the European stage.

In Wales, YesCymru has brought the question of sovereignty into the mainstream, supported by the cultural revival of the Welsh language and the steady rise of Plaid Cymru. Recent polling shows Labour on the verge of losing its century-long dominance in Wales. The country is now a in a political stand-off. On one side, Plaid Cymru, defending Celtic identity while promoting a progressive, modern vision; on the other, Reform UK, appealing to voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and hollow promises to the working class.

In Ireland, a cultural renaissance, marked by the global success of acts like Kneecap and Lankum, signals a younger generation’s confident embrace of Irishness on its own terms. This cultural shift is fuelling growing momentum for reunification. A united Ireland is no longer a distant dream; it is a realistic prospect within our lifetime.

Yet in Cornwall, one of the six recognised Celtic nations, this same revival is under threat, not from apathy, but from the creeping tide of English nationalism. As Reform UK and its allies promote a centralised, monocultural vision of British identity, Cornwall is increasingly at risk. Without the institutional protections afforded to Scotland, Wales, or Ireland, the Cornish face the real possibility of cultural and political erasure.

English Nationalism: Soft Power, Hard Impact

Modern English nationalism is explicitly fascistic. It bears all of the hallmarks of authoritarian ideology: a fixation on national purity, resistance to regional differences, and hostility to dissent. It promotes a Britain built around Middle England, where traditions, institutions, and governance revolve around Traditional English norms and perspectives. Devolution is viewed as indulgence; cultural autonomy as subversion.

For the Cornish, this presents a problem. The Cornish language, classified by UNESCO as “critically endangered”, has no guaranteed state funding. Local government has no meaningful autonomy. Despite the UK government recognising the Cornish as a national minority in 2014 under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, practical support has been negligible.

The refusal to grant Cornwall a devolved assembly, despite overwhelming local support during the 2002 consultation, is symptomatic of a wider pattern: one of cultural neglect and political denial. Unlike Scotland or Wales, Cornwall remains treated as a “county of England” rather than a distinct Celtic nation.

Celtic Resurgence Elsewhere

Scotland’s nationhood has been fortified by political success. The independence referendum made Scottish identity a global talking point. Welsh language revitalisation, with bilingual signage, schools, and media, has normalised Welsh as a living language, not a curiosity. In Ireland, cultural revival is intertwined with a rejection of colonial legacies. Artists like Kneecap rap in Irish about working-class life, politics, and resistance, while folk-punk bands like Lankum use traditional music to question power and modernity. These movements are explicitly anti-assimilationist. They don’t ask permission to exist, they assert their right to.

Cornwall, by contrast, lacks the institutional framework and resources to mount a similar revival at scale. The grassroots efforts to revive Kernewek, run cultural festivals, and keep political pressure through Mebyon Kernow and other groups, are powerful, but under-resourced. Without structural support, the danger is that Cornish culture becomes fossilised, something quaint to be looked at, not lived.

Parallels with Franco’s Spain

To understand the potential danger, consider Catalonia under Francisco Franco. After the Civil War, Franco implemented a brutal programme of cultural suppression. The Catalan language was banned in public life; Catalan books were destroyed; speaking the language could cost you your job…or worse. The goal was clear: erase the idea of a Catalan nation and enforce a singular, Spanish identity.

Cornwall is not Catalonia, it’s smaller and poorer. The UK is not Franco’s Spain, but a more modern and crypto-fascist state. Suppression today doesn’t require overt violence. Cultural erasure can be achieved through silence, neglect, and enforced assimilation. In Cornwall, children are rarely taught their own history, the Stannary Parliament, the 1497 rebellion, the Prayer Book Uprising. Public funding overwhelmingly favours English institutions, and Cornish voices are largely absent from national discourse. This isn’t neutral governance; it is a subtle but deliberate form of imperialism.

The Reform Threat

Enter Reform UK. On the surface, it is a populist reaction to economic and political discomfort. But at its heart is an aggressive form of English nationalism, anti-devolution, anti-minority rights, and anti-pluralism. It imagines a Britain of flat caps, pints, and empire nostalgia, where anything outside that narrow lens is foreign.

Cornwall, with its Celtic identity and history of resistance, doesn’t fit. Reform doesn’t want to flatten only immigration or European influence, it wants to flatten diversity of all kinds, including the internal diversity of the UK’s nations and regions. In such a political climate, Cornish culture is not simply overlooked; it is actively inconvenient.

Cultural Erasure Without Dictatorship

You don’t need a Franco to destroy a culture. You only need a government that never funds its language, never teaches its history, and never grants it political voice. You need a media that ignores it, and an education system that defines Britishness through Englishness. Over time, cultures die not with gunfire, but with silence.

The English nationalist mythos, of Empire, Churchill, and “British values”, leaves little room for Cornish miners, Folk Festivals, or Kernewek. It reduces Cornwall to a holiday destination for the rich and the Cornish to a curiosity.

Where to now? A Call for Resistance.

The threat facing Cornwall is not (always) jackbooted tyranny but a slow cultural suffocation. English nationalism, especially in its Reform-style resurgence, treats Cornish identity as an anomaly to be absorbed or ignored. But Cornwall is not England. It never has been.

Yet resistance persists. Every Cornish flag flown, every child taught Kernewek, every vote cast for Mebyon Kernow is a stand against erasure. The Cornish do not want isolation or indulgence, they want fairness. They want to exist on their own terms, with their history acknowledged, their language supported, and their people given the right to shape their future.

What’s happening in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland proves that cultural revival and political agency go hand in hand. For Cornwall to truly thrive as a Celtic nation, it needs both.

The lesson from Europe’s past is clear: suppressing minority nations in the name of unity doesn’t create strength, but injustice. If Cornwall is to survive and flourish, it must resist this tide of assimilation and assert its rightful place among the Celtic nations of these islands.

Cornwall’s future depends on it.

Image Via: Cobblestone Media.