Editing Mebyon Kernow (section)

=== Growth (1960s–1970s) ===
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, MK was in essence a small political pressure group rather than a true political party, with members being able to join other political parties as well.<ref name=":11" /> In February 1960, Beer was succeeded by Robert Dunstone as Chairman of MK.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=44}}</ref> By March 1962, the party had seventy members,<ref name="Deacon45">{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=45}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Williams|2014|p=14}}</ref> of which thirty were attending the party's infrequent meetings.<ref name="Deacon45"/>

Under Dunstone, the party followed a policy of "patient, persistent, and polite lobbying", the standard for which was set by its reaction to proposed railway closures in 1962, which included public meetings, letters of protest and the formation of a transport sub-committee of the party.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|pp=46–7}}</ref> MK campaigned for the establishment of a Cornish University, a Cornish Industrial Board, and the repatriation of [[Heligoland]] [[Frisians]] whose land was used by the British government as a bombing range in the mid-1950s. It published numerous policy papers to support its positions.<ref name=":11" />

MK gained popularity in the 1960s, when it campaigned against 'overspill' housing developments in Cornwall to accommodate incomers from Greater London.<ref name=":1" /> MK's opposition prompted opponents to label the party as [[racialist]]; the party denied the allegations and responded with ''What Cornishmen Can Do'', a pamphlet published in September 1968 which proposed more investment in natural resources, food processing and technological industries, as well as a Cornish University, tidal barrages and more support for small farmers.<ref name="Deacon53">{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=53}}</ref> Partly due to its opposition to overspill, by 1965, the party numbered 700 members, rising to 1,000 by early 1968.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|pp=48–9}}</ref> In April 1967, Colin Murley was elected for MK onto [[Cornwall Council|Cornwall County Council]] for the seat of [[St Day]] & [[Lanner, Cornwall|Lanner]]; he had stood on an anti-overspill platform.<ref name=":11" /><ref name=":1" /> MK members also sat as independent councillors on the district council.<ref name="Williams18">{{harvnb|Williams|2014|p=18}}</ref> The party grew to become the leading champion for [[Cornish nationalism]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfJYBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT159|title=Engel's England: Thirty-nine counties, one capital and one man|last=Engel|first=Matthew|date=2014|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1-84765-928-6|page=159}}</ref>

On [[St. Piran's Day]] in 1968, the first edition of ''Cornish Nation'' was published; this is the party's magazine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/records-archives-and-cornish-studies/cornish-studies-library/cornish-studies-library-collections/newspapers-and-periodicals/local-journals-and-periodicals/?page=14295|title=Local journals and periodicals – Cornwall Council|website=www.cornwall.gov.uk|language=en|access-date=26 June 2018|archive-date=23 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923210534/http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/records-archives-and-cornish-studies/cornish-studies-library/cornish-studies-library-collections/newspapers-and-periodicals/local-journals-and-periodicals/?page=14295|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mebyonkernow.org/articles/article.php?id=172|title=Cornish Nation no. 76 ... available now!|last=Cole|first=Dick|date=28 October 2017|website=www.mebyonkernow.org|access-date=26 June 2018|archive-date=26 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180626135618/https://www.mebyonkernow.org/articles/article.php?id=172|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Williams|2014|p=19}}</ref> In the same year, Leonard Truran succeeded Dunstone as Chairman of MK;<ref name="Deacon53"/> Dunstone then became the party's first Honorary President.<ref name="Deacon127">{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=127}}</ref>

By the 1970s the group developed into a more coherent and unified organisation.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}} At the annual conference in October 1967, party members voted for a resolution to contest elections to the [[House of Commons (United Kingdom)|House of Commons]],<ref name="Williams18"/> marking a turning point in MK's transition from a pressure group into a political party. The decision meant that councillors, prospective parliamentary candidates and MPs who held dual party membership began to disassociate themselves from MK.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=54}}</ref> Despite the decision, a faction in MK remained frustrated at the continuing possibility of dual party membership, the wide range of views on Cornish nationalism in the party and MK's slow transition into a political party; this dissident faction formed the Cornish National Party in July 1969. The CNP's members were expelled from MK, but the CNP had disappointing election results in the 1970 county council elections, leading most CNP members to rejoin MK by the mid-1970s.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=56}}</ref>

In the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 election]], [[Richard Jenkin]], who would succeed Truran as Chairman of MK in 1973,<ref name="Deacon128">{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=128}}</ref> won 2% of the vote in the [[Falmouth and Camborne (UK Parliament constituency)|Falmouth & Camborne]] constituency. [[James Whetter]] stood for MK in the [[Truro (UK Parliament constituency)|Truro]] constituency in the general elections of [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February]] and [[October 1974 United Kingdom general election|October]] 1974, achieving 1.5% and 0.7% of the vote respectively. The party contested the constituencies of [[St Ives (UK Parliament constituency)|St Ives]] and Falmouth & Camborne in both the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979]] and [[1983 United Kingdom general election|1983]] elections.<ref name="Craig">F. W. S. Craig, ''British parliamentary election results, 1950–1973''.</ref> MK also contested the [[1979 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom|1979 European Parliament election]], winning 5.9% of the vote in the constituency of [[Cornwall and West Plymouth (European Parliament constituency)|Cornwall & West Plymouth]].<ref name=":8">{{Cite web|url=http://www.election.demon.co.uk/epe1.html|title=United Kingdom European Parliamentary Election results 1979–94: England (part 1)|website=www.election.demon.co.uk|access-date=28 June 2018|archive-date=22 August 2011|archive-url=https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110822212436/http://www.election.demon.co.uk/epe1.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Following Dunstone's death in 1973, [[E.G. Retallack Hooper]] was elected the party's Honorary President; Hooper was a former Grand Bard of the [[Gorseth Kernow]] who had been a founding member of MK and was a prolific Cornish language writer and journalist.<ref name="Deacon127"/>

The CNP's formation highlighted deep fissures in MK between its constitutionalist and separatist wings; these were exacerbated by continuing inward migration to Cornwall, leading to a 26% increase in its population in the two decades to 1981. The ''Cornish Nation'' gave increasingly sympathetic coverage of Irish republicanism; MK warned of civil unrest in Cornwall and the extermination of the Cornish national identity if overspill continued; and its members talked openly of plans to install a shadow government "in the name of the Cornish people in the event of civil breakdown".<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|pp=60–1}}</ref> A motion to restrict party membership to those who were Cornish by "family trees going back through several centuries" was defeated in 1973;<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=62}}</ref> and a September 1974 issue of the ''Cornish Nation'' describing [[Michael Gaughan (Irish republican)|Michael Gaughan]], an [[Provisional Irish Republican Army|IRA]] hunger striker, as a "Celtic hero" was widely criticised in the press and rebuked by the party.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=63}}</ref> MK's divisions came to a head in May 1975, when a motion to depose the party's leadership and integrate the party with the [[Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament|Revived Stannary Parliament]], which had newly reopened in 1974, was narrowly defeated.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|pp=65–6}}</ref> On 28 May 1975, Whetter, who had led the defeated motion, resigned his membership of MK to form a second [[Cornish Nationalist Party]], which campaigned for full [[Cornish self-government movement|Cornish independence]] on a pro-European platform.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=66}}</ref> This second CNP also had disappointing electoral results and has not contested elections since 1985.<ref name="Deacon81"/>

During the 1970s, MK held rallies in support of Cornwall's fishing industry and against regional unemployment and nuclear waste;<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=70}}</ref> in the 1980s, these rallies were aggravated by the policies of the incumbent [[Thatcher ministry (disambiguation)|Thatcher government]].<!--Intentional link to DAB page--><ref name=":11" /> Following the 1975 split, the party was re-energised by an influx of new, younger members, which also pushed MK more firmly away from its separatist wing.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=67}}</ref> Citing concerns about its effect on Cornwall's fishing industry, the party opposed the Common Market;<ref name=":12">{{Cite book|url=https://is.cuni.cz/webapps/zzp/detail/86508/|title=Revival of the Cornish Language: Its Reasons, Challenges and its Relation towards the Cornish Identity|last=Zadražilová|first=Dagmar|year=2010|location=Prague|pages=52|access-date=4 July 2018|archive-date=4 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180704213702/https://is.cuni.cz/webapps/zzp/detail/86508/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|pp=71–2}}</ref> MK only began to endorse the UK's membership of the EEC in the 1980s.<ref>{{harvnb|Deacon|Cole|Tregidga|2003|p=87}}</ref>