Mebyon Kernow - General election 2010

The Cornish Nationalist party, One of the smaller fish in the Pond that is British Politics but in this election they could break through into Westminster.

A question you may have is why the Cornish nationalists were not mentioned in my previous post on The Celtic Bloc, mainly it's because they are the smallest nationalist party, only running in the six Cornish seats, but after writing the last article I realised that this party may cause a few surprises were it to gain even one seat.

1) Get a Seat! - Obvious first point, Mebyon Kernow needs only one seat to make the point, it will scare the hell out of the Lib Dems and Conservatives (Labour is not liked in Cornwall) if they get one it will be huge exposure for them and could add an interesting new dynamic to the review of how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get funded

2) The English Democrats - Should, come election day, The English Democrats and Mebyon Kernow achieve a seat between them, it could cause a bit of a dilemma for the Celtic Bloc, The extra seats would help them gain more influence but I doubt they'd be able to bring both the Cornish and English on board together. The English democrats want an English Parliament to counter the regionalisation the Labour government has implemented in England, The Cornish want more Autonomy from Westminster, so the Conflict in interests is obvious. If however Mebyon Kernow were to succeed in getting a seat or two and the English Democrats failed the Eng Dems could see the Cornish Join with the Celtic Bloc to pressure for more Autonomy with Plaid Cymru and the SNP while they are stuck at mayoral level in terms of influence.

3) *If MK get a seat and EngDems fail* - MK needs to use the one man Media magnet that is Alex Salmond, he may be a bit closer to independence than devolution than MK but he will bring MK attention which could help them look as a viable alternative to the LibDems in the South West of England

4) *if Both EngDems and MK achieve electoral success* - Try and reach an agreement due to the Cornish being a Celtic Peoples, perhaps the EngDems will go for it and the Celtic bloc could expand with both Mebyon Kernow and the English Democrats into a Nationalist Bloc (We'll ignore trying to get the SDLP on board for the moment)

5)*if Both achieve success but the Celtic bloc stick with the EngDems - it isn't game over for the MK, infact MK could join the SDLP in sitting with Labour in Westminster, it would mean Labour could be Propped in Government by a small nationalist following and would be more likely to give into Cornish Devolution ideas (SDLP who has huge Experience with Devolution would be a good friend for the MK)

Mebyon Kernow is a hard party to plan for due to their much lower profile. However their leader did take his ward by 78% I believe, so there is a definite following there, makes Cornwall and Interesting Battle ground and could spell disaster for the LibDems.

Anyone have any thoughts on MK?