Pete Woodcock: Is Yorkshire a nation in its own right?

IF you asked directions to Exeter from the part of Cornwall I am from, the response would likely to be something along the lines of “head along the A30 towards the Tamar, cross it and go into England and then carry on until you hit Exeter”.

The use of “England” is the important bit. Many Cornish people will only refer to themselves as Cornish, never English. The English are the people who live to the east of the river Tamar, and the fact that Cornwall is a county in the UK is simply an inconvenience that is wilfully overlooked.

In a piece of research I am currently conducting on Cornish identity, half of all respondents defined themselves as “only Cornish and not English” with a quarter saying they were “more Cornish than English”. Just one in 30 respondents said they were “more English than Cornish” and still fewer said “only English, not Cornish”.

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This does not necessarily mean that most Cornish people feel they should be independent from the rest of England or receive devolution of powers. After all, political nationalism is a different beast to cultural nationalism. But there is little doubt that most in Cornwall regard themselves as a distinct nation separate from England. Indeed, anyone who visits Cornwall on holiday could not miss the sheer numbers of St Piran’s flags, Cornish emblems and references to a distinct culture and history.

This feeling of distinctness held by the Cornish was recognised this year by the Government when they were included, along with the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish, as a special minority under the provision of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. This status was first introduced by the Council of Europe some 20 years ago, the idea being that member states would resolve to protect those national minorities which existed within their respective territories.

The impact this inclusion will have in terms of public policy is small, but many Cornish people are delighted. But if the UK Government is willing to grant minority status to Cornwall, are there other groups that deserve inclusion?

Anyone who has lived in Yorkshire for any period of time cannot fail to grasp how strongly its people identify with their county, which raises the question if this is similar to the type of identity felt by Cornish people. More specifically, should Yorkshire people be granted national minority status too? This is a question I am addressing in another piece of research.

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Yorkshire certainly has the advantage over Cornwall in terms of population; there are around 10 times more people living in Yorkshire than in Cornwall. Indeed, the population of Yorkshire is roughly the same as Scotland, and the Scots, of course, have a referendum on independence coming up in September.

Yorkshire doesn’t just benefit from its people, but also a wide array of the sort of geographical and economic factors that could define a nation. As the journalist Sir Simon Jenkins commented recently, suggesting that Yorkshire was a country in the making, Yorkshire is “a diverse geographical entity of great cities, ancient cathedrals, industrial estates, seats of learning, wild uplands and sweeping coasts”.

There can also be no doubt that there is a strong sense of identity in Yorkshire, with the virtues of hard work, plain speaking and neighbourliness prized most among all others. Like the Cornish, Yorkshire people have been seen as exhibiting the rugged independence and suspicion of authority that often emerges in people who live a distance from the capital.

Reaction to events such as the recent Grand Départ of the Tour de France illustrates the pride Yorkshire people have in their county and their history. The Tour de France visited Yorkshire, not the north east region or the M62 corridor.

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Such success will undoubtedly feed the growing calls for Yorkshire to be given greater powers from central Government. It’s actually something that Tony Blair’s government proposed a decade ago, when plans were unveiled for three devolution referendums in northern England.

The votes concerned the question of devolving limited political powers from Parliament to elected regional assemblies in North East England, North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber respectively. However, when 78 per cent voters in the North East rejected the proposal, the plans were stopped in their tracks and the referendums in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber were first postponed and then dropped altogether.

It is intriguing to wonder how people in this region would have voted then – and indeed, how they would vote today if given the chance.

But for all the calls for greater regional powers, when it comes to 
a sense of identity I am not convinced that the people of Yorkshire feel 
so removed from the rest of the country.

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There can be no doubting the pride that they feel in their identity, but do they, like the Cornish, feel that their identity is separate from an English and/or British identity? Having lived here for a decade, I’m not so sure. My belief is that, unlike the Cornish, people from Yorkshire feel that there is no contradiction between being from Yorkshire and being English; indeed that the former defines the latter. In other words, Yorkshire, in the eyes of the Yorkshireman, is the very heart of England.

Still, I am intrigued to find out what being from Yorkshire means to people. Also I want to know if Yorkshire people have any sympathy for claims for devolution to Yorkshire or even independence.

My questionnaire on these very issues can be found at www.survey.bris.ac.uk/hud/yorkshire.

• Pete Woodcock is a lecturer in political theory at the University of Huddersfield.