Mebyon Kernow on the up

As the eyes of the world have been on Cornwall over the last few days, this might be a good moment to mention that the Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow, a sister party of both the SNP and Plaid Cymru, did reasonably well in the elections to Cornwall Council last month - it increased both its vote share and its number of seats.

Popular vote:

Conservatives 37.9% (+2.7)

Liberal Democrats 18.5% (-11.3)

Independents 16.3% (-4.0)

Labour 11.3% (+3.3)

Greens 9.1% (+7.1)

Mebyon Kernow 5.3% (+2.0)

Seats:

Conservatives 47 (+1)

Independents 16 (-14)

Liberal Democrats 13 (-25)

Mebyon Kernow 5 (+1)

Labour 5 (-)

Greens 1 (-)

It's not easy for a minority party to win multiple seats under first-past-the-post, and the increase from four to five is even better than it looks because the overall number of seats on the council was drastically reduced for this election.  Sadly, though, in an overall sense the result was probably a setback for Cornish autonomy, because the Tories took control of the council with an overall majority.  The previous council leader had been an independent, and was on record as regarding Cornwall as a Celtic nation worthy of Scottish/Welsh-style devolution.  It's hard to imagine a Tory administration taking a similar attitude.

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