G7 and Cornwall: in the Spotlight

It’s not every year that the G7 decides to host its annual meeting in your area, but that is what happened for Cornwall this year.  From Thursday 10^th until Sunday 13^th June, the leaders of the most powerful nations in the world met in Cornwall.  Of course President Joe Biden fell in love with the area, and, needing global trade deals, the G7 leaders and their partners got to have dinner with four generations of the Royal Family.  

But for many Cornish organisations, this was a real opportunity to showcase that our region is much more than just a visitor destination, and offers many exciting and dynamic industries from the digital economy to renewable energy; the creative sector to maritime engineering; and newer entrants, aerospace and Lithium extraction.  These were certainly central to the media briefings although many in the press still focussed on clichés of how pretty Cornwall is in the sunshine (and in the mizzle which greeted the first few days).

For MK, it was also an opportunity to point out the enormous inequalities that exists between Cornwall and the rest of the UK, with Cornwall being one of the poorest parts of Britain.  Famously, there was a sign for a foodbank, delivering emergency food to the desperate, within a short distance from the G7 Venue.  Mebyon Kernow called for the UK government to commit to a meaningful devolution settlement for Cornwall, to tackle these inequities.

The protest environment around the G7 had a lively, carnival atmosphere and MK members campaigned on issues such as climate change, the environment, and the vaccine roll-out to poorer parts of the world.

And it was of course wonderful to see our some of our cultural and culinary delights on display to the world.  We are also hoping that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be more willing to recognise Cornwall as a nation, now his social media team have thanked Cornwall, in the Cornish language – meur ras.