A Cornish separatist group claims to have a would-be female suicide bomber and said they will take up an armed resistance to fight for the independence of Cornwall, according to reports.
The Cornish Republican Army (CRA), formerly known as the Cornish National Liberation Army which arose in the early 2000s and took responsibility for dozens of arson attacks in the county against “English” businesses, was believed to have been disbanded after going dormant for a decade.
However, according to what claims to be the group’s official blog, the CRA wrote: “Our organisation has grown and we now have one member who is prepared to pay the ultimate price in the battle for Kernow [the Cornish name for Cornwall].
“She is prepared to sacrifice herself although we shall not ask for this lightly – only as a last measure.”
The group also took responsibility for firebombing celebrity chef Rick Stein’s restaurant located in Porthleven on the peninsular coast last month as well as two other recent fires in Truro and Penryn.
The CRA also laid claim to the removal and destruction of what it calls the “Blood Cross flags” – the red-cross-on-white flag of St. George of England – issuing “warnings to owners of holiday businesses flying the blood cross flag,” reports the Plymouth Herald.
MailOnline detailed the poor relationship between Stein and fellow celebrity chef Jamie Oliver with the local community, after the chefs took over and opened a string of restaurants and fish and chip shops in the area.
“We have ceased activities against Stein and Oliver, but our activities against second and expensive English-owned homes will continue. We also intend to target those authorities including the EIS [‘English Imperial System’] police who victimise Cornish people. What have we to fear or lose – nothing.”
“What has really been won this past 50 years? – nothing other than an ethnic cleansing of the people of Kernow,” the statement continued.
Cornwall, on the south-west coast of Britain, has a Celtic cultural and ethnic background distinct to that of the rest of England. The remainder of the English home nation historically are predominantly of Anglo-Saxon, mixed with some Celtic and Nordic, ancestry.
The region’s second language, Cornish, is related to other Celtic languages on the British Isles such as Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Manx. Cornish nationalism seeks some level of autonomy and self-governance through devolution similar to that of the devolved Assembly of Wales or the Scottish parliament.
The CRA claims to have thirty volunteers in Active Service Units (ASU) ready to fight for Cornish independence, and claims to have received funding from other “Celtic Countries and from Irish groups in the United States of America”. The group also alleges to have welcomed members from the Free Wales Army (FWA), the Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA), the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), and the now defunct Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA).
However, further on, its statement contradicts its militant position, writing: “While we understand and have sympathy for those Cornish people who are frustrated and angry about the English Imperialist occupation, oppression and ethnic cleansing of Kernow, foreign ownership of second homes and the uncontrolled influx of incomers into our homeland – we seek to Free Cornwall for the native indigenous Celtic Cornish folk by legal political activity only.”
The Plymouth Herald reports Devon and Cornwall Police have been made aware of the group’s stated intentions.
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