THE results of the general election prompted thousands of disgruntled voters in the north of England to issue a plea to "take us with you Scotland".

But the success of the SNP is helping to inspire regional English parties campaigning for more local powers south of the border.

The groups range from Mebyon Kernow, a centre-left party which dates back to the 1950s and is calling for a National Assembly for Cornwall, to Yorkshire First, which was set up last year by representatives from across the political spectrum who want to see the interests of the English county advanced.

The issue of devolution for English regions is back on the agenda following the election. Around 32,000 people have signed a petition calling for the north of England to split from the rest of the country and join with Scotland - backed by the Twitter hashtag #TakeUsWithYouScotland.

Last week Chancellor George Osborne pledged to give English cities more powers in his first post-election speech, saying the "old model" of running everything from London was "broken".

Richard Carter, leader of Yorkshire First, said he believed they could learn from what had happened in Scotland, even though they "disagree fundamentally" with the SNP's end goal of independence.

He said: "For the last 40 years we have had more centralising going on within England and at the same time there has been this pull towards Scotland and Wales getting more powers. We think that is a good thing, but the big problem seems to be England.

"In an unbalanced United Kingdom, how do you address this issue? We think the best way is to have an England of the regions - essentially you have got a federal England and the regions of England could come together when there were all-England issues to discuss."

Carter said Yorkshire First was set up in April last year, partly in response to seeing that Scotland had "tried and tested devolution that seems to work". The party put forward 14 candidates at the General Election and secured just over 1% of the vote.

But Carter said while he expected the election to provide more opportunity to discuss the issue of regional devolution in England, the message had been "drowned out" by "disgraceful" campaigning from the Conservatives over the "threat from the maurading Scots".

"We found it quite difficult to get a good positive message out there," he said. "The Conservatives were the only party which played the nationalist card in this election - we thought it was disgraceful."

Andrew Long, deputy leader for Mebyon Kernow, said new members had increased by around 5% since April this year and they now had around 1,000 supporters.

He said this was partly down to a boost from the success of nationalist parties like the SNP and Plaid Cymru, but also added the election was a "double-edged sword" because of the message of "fear" which was being pushed by the Conservatives.

"For those people in favour of devolution anyway it had a really good impact, as people were more in tune or inclined to listen because of how well the SNP was doing," he said.

"But the frankly xenophobic attitude of the Conservative Party and to a lesser extent of the Labour party - towards Scotland and the SNP in particular - I think that had an impact on our vote."

Long said in Cornwall it was more common to see the Cornish flag - known as the St Piran's Cross - flown than the St George's Cross, which he claimed was part of a growing sense of the region being a "different land" from England over the past 20 years.

He said: "Ministers and civil servants knowledge of what it is like to live in rural areas like Cornwall is almost non-existent," he said.

"They have the fudge-box view of Cornwall as being nice lovely beaches and pretty fishing villages, but the reality is, for example, that we have 28,000 people on the housing waiting list.

"A national assembly is a necessity for Cornwall - and I think the success of the SNP in Scotland has had an impact in Cornwall."