Essex's Canvey Island plots Catalan-style bid for independence from Britain
Mason Cooper
Updated on March 22, 2026
CANVEY Island is plotting a Catalan-style bid to break away from Britain.
The Thames island in Essex, which has a population of almost 40,000, is fed up with decisions being made about its future on the mainland.
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And now residents are now planning a revolt - led by the Canvey Island Independent Party (CIIP).
The move would start with a petition, with locals said to have had enough of the island being governed by the Conservative-run Castle Point council.
Dave Blackwell, a CIIP councillor for Canvey Island Central, told The Times: “Canvey people don’t want to be told what to do by the mainland and they don’t want to be part of Castle Point.
“It is time for us to start a move for proper independence, like the Catalonians, and we must begin with a petition.
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“It is simply not fair that there are more councillors sitting on the council from the mainland than from Canvey.
"We need our own voice to determine our own future even if that means we have to break away.
"The first thing we have to do is to ask the Boundary Commission for change.
“I think it will happen as more and more power is eventually handed to town councils but if they had a referendum here like they had in Catalonia about breaking from Spain, I am convinced that 100 per cent of people would vote to leave Castle Point.”
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A controversial referendum in Catalonia this month saw independence for the Spanish region declared.
But polling day was marred by violent clashes as Spanish police confiscated ballot boxes and attempted to prevent members of the public from entering polling stations.
Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont has now failed to clarify whether he has declared independence.
George Whatley, who lives on the island and led a long-running campaign to block the expansion of oil and gas refineries on Canvey, said: “Castle Point council was born from a shot-gun wedding years ago and has had a controlling Tory majority ever since, but Canvey has had mainly independent councillors.
"Castle Point council is run by the Conservatives and they have systematically treated Canvey as the Cinderella district for years.
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"People here are fed up with what historically seems to be unfair planning decisions and a general lack of investment in the infrastructure of the island. Everything favours the mainland districts, which are Tory-controlled.
“Being independent is nothing new — we considered a unilateral declaration of independence in the oil refinery fight in the 1970s and 80s.”
Canvey Island was originally a small series of islands in the Thames estuary, but Dutch engineers reclaimed land from the sea in the 17th Century to form one large island.
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It put itself on the map in the 19th Century when Londoners flocked to the seaside resort to escape the smog in the capital.
In 1953, disaster hit the island when 59 people were killed in a North Sea storm surge. The rest of the island had to be evacuated.
Canvey Island is mentioned in Great Expectations when Charles Dickens sent Pip and fugitive Magwitch to hide out in The Lobster Smack pub, which still exists today.
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