Hundreds of people flocked to celebrate their identity with a Cornish passport at the Royal Cornwall Show.

Supported by Cornwall Council, Golden Tree Productions’ Cornish Embassy and Tick Box Bus saw more than 1,000 people queue to get a passport.

An overwhelming 96% of visitors passing through the bus over three days at the Show supported the inclusion of a tick box on the Census.

MP for St Austell and Newquay Steve Double secured a debate in Parliament on the inclusion of a tick box on the Census, which was heard earlier this week.

Cornwall Councillor and chair of the council’s Cornish Minority Status Working Group, Jesse Foot said the campaign for the inclusion of a tick box would continue: “While we welcome the ONS’ commitment to improving data collection and working with us, this still falls short of recognising the minority status afforded to the Cornish people by the Framework Convention in 2014.

“Cornwall Council will not stop pushing for a box which says ‘Cornish’ to be added. Whether one identifies as Cornish by birth, marriage, ancestry or some other route one has the right to be recognised, for services to be planned, and for funding to be sought on this basis. This is one of the reasons we put this proposition forward in our recent submission to Government - to build on our existing devolution deal, New Frontiers.” 

In the last census in 2011, a total of 83,966 people in Britain ticked ’other’ and physically wrote in ’Cornish’ as their national identity. Within Cornwall the total was 73,220.