He also possessed the courage and eloquence to speak out openly when so many of his contemporaries would do no more than mumble furtive agreement.
The son of two Birmingham schoolteachers, Powell’s intellect secured him a brilliant early career as a Cambridge Classics don, before moving to take up an academic post at Sydney University.
On the outbreak of war he returned to England and volunteered for the Army as a humble private soldier. His character and abilities could not long remain hidden, and he rose from the ranks to become the youngest serving Brigadier in the British Army. Awarded the MBE in 1945, he went on to serve in India, becoming fluent in Hindi and Urdu and acquiring a love for the subcontinent and its people belying later “racist” smears thrown at him.
In 1950, Powell entered Parliament as MP for Wolverhampton South-West, a seat he was to represent until he refused to stand in 1974. A promising ministerial career culminated in being Minister of Health from 1960-63. In the latter position, he ran a ministry which was actively poaching nurses and doctors from poor Third World countries rather than improving pay and training opportunities for British medics. This clearly brought his incisive mind to bear on the whole question of immigration. Powell resigned from the Government in 1963 in protest at what he saw as excessive 2.5% inflation and the Tory Government blaming it on the Trade Unions rather than its own inflationary policies. Powell returned to the Tory Shadow Cabinet in Opposition after 1964.
It was on Saturday, 20th April 1968 that Powell stepped from transient political prominence to enduring greatness, with his famous “Rivers of Blood” speech on immigration.
“We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre”, he said.
“By the year 2000”, he went on – in words that history has shown were a true prophecy – the immigrant population “must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London… Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.”
As indeed today they are.
He didn’t just raise a widely known, but little spoken of in such senior public circles, problem but also proposed a solution – the same solution as the British National Party proposes now:
“If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected.
“Hence the urgency of implementing now the second element of the Conservative Party’s policy: the encouragement of re-emigration. Nobody can make an estimate of the numbers which, with generous grants and assistance, would choose either to return to their countries of origin or to go to other countries anxious to receive the manpower and the skills they represent. Nobody knows because no such policy has been attempted.
“In short, suspension of immigration and encouragement of re-emigration hang together, logically and humanly, as two aspects of the same approach”.
If this was not done, Powell ended with a dark foreboding to be realised in riot after riot, and even more chillingly on 7/7:
“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’”.
Powell’s courageous and eloquent words were met with a reaction which was to become familiar on this issue. The public backed him to the hilt; sending him 120,000 letters of support, whilst the political Establishment closed ranks against him.
They did not reply to, still less seek to answer, his points. They simply denounced him as a “racist” and Tory Leader Edward Heath sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet.
When Heath became Prime Minister in 1970, the loathsome traitor proved Powell wrong in his faith that, “The Tory Party stood for the absolute independence of the UK: and that in peace as well as in war, this demanded any sacrifice – including life and limb”.
Yet, as Heath signed the Treaty of Rome and submitted our nation to the Common Market, Enoch Powell’s question was as unanswerable then as it is now, after successive Prime Ministers have signed away even more of our freedom to what is now the “EU”:
“Why give up a thousand years of struggle for our self government and discard our independence and submit to laws passed by foreigners?”
For he is also right that:
“If parliamentary self government is the essence of British liberty, the condition upon which we enjoy it is that the UK is politically distinct and separate”.
A British liberty Enoch Powell sadly failed to secure even when he finally broke with the Tories in 1974. He later return to the Commons as Ulster Unionist MP for South Down and although it was a brave decision, given the IRA threat, it was sadly, politically irrelevant.
At his death in 1998 Enoch Powell lent credence to his celebrated dictum that “all political careers end in failure”.
Editor: This was first published by the British Democrats in 2011.
A first class article, reminding us once again of the greatest Prime minister that we Never had. As for Edward Heath, the less said the better, he was not in Enoch’s league, neither as a man or a politician. Powell loved his country, and spoke the truth despite knowing how the traitors would react.
The words ‘ same solution as the British National Party ‘ etc , made me jump. Well time does move on with our British Democratic Party being the way forward and Enoch , the Great Mans Words , as we NATIONALISTS knew they would , HAVE BEEN PROVED TRUE !
Over the years a man of great vision dares to put his beliefs out there and risk the wrath of the establishment, Powell was such a man as was Mosley before him.How sad that we failed to act and this has indeed seen the destruction of our Nation.I can at present see no way out for our people instead I see a future of our people as slaves.
Enoch Powell is a mile stone in British politics on which we can measure the demographic change in Britian. A great man with vision and confidence to speak openly and intelligently about what he felt was right.
For this reason Enoch Powell will one day be an inspiration and a source to drive those who recognise their native people need support and protection today and tomorrow, as they did in the past.
Yes well pointed out, Enoch Powell was not a ”racist”, he respected other people’s cultures, but unlike so many other British politicians, he wanted to protect and preserve our own. He will always be remembered , as having distinguished himself from his fellow MP’s, because of his loyalty to this country.
shame Powell was not PM instead of Heath He understood the stupidity of the then European Community and our blind adherence to the mythical special relationship with the USA
As usual , you are right there Adam. It is difficult for our younger members and supporters to imagine , but I can assure you that millions of People , of all backgrounds , supported Enoch. I hope our older ones can send in some stories from the time. I will send a couple in.
Powell was unusual (certainly for a Tory) in that he recognised the so-called ‘special relationship’ for what it truely was (and still is) ie a one-sided relationship in which Britain is occasionally patted on the head by our masters in Washington D.C for doing as it is told and going to war for US national interests. Of course, we have to thank half-American idiot Winston Churchill for putting Britain at a disadvantage in this way as that cretin is the one who started this nonsensical ‘Special Relationship’ off in the first place and our politicians haven’t recognised the true nature of it ever since apart from Mr Powell and a few others. It is so sad that our country had Winston as PM in 1940 instead of someone more brainy and able to look into the future. If only the King at that time had dismissed him and refused to do any public visits ect until he was gone!
I W t is ironic that actually it is we NATIONALISTS who respect other Peoples Culture and Identity ! This is because we understand , As Enoch did , that the Peoples of the World ARE DIFFERENT TO ONE ANOTHER. The Multi Cultural Maniacs wish to blend everyone into a shapeless , unthinking , easily manageable blob of creatures wh believe in and stand for nothing , just do what they are told !
He had a brilliant mind, and his prophecy is now acknowledged as fact.
He should certainly be remembered and respected. However, I think the ‘encouragement of re-emigration’ policy is past its sell-by date and present British nationalists should not make a fetish of it.
Pat , read our Policy document regarding REPATRIATION and also about things being Physically Possible , once they are Politically Possible. Things can change and just like our Referendum , WE WILL WIN !
That last sentence in your post I completely concur with John, I too believe that we can eventually cross that seemingly evasive finishing line but by God before we approach the final hurdle we have one hell of a job in front of us.
As I’m sure you are well aware by now I happen to be a member of the Party resident in Northern Ireland – to be perfectly blunt & honest, only a handful of people with an interest in British Nationalism will have heard of the British Democratic Party, but with a bit of lady luck on our side hopefully this situation is about to change.
Using some old contacts I previously made, I have been able to persuade a couple of my fellow British Nationalists into going on a recruitment drive via a series of planned leafleting sessions on behalf of the British Democratic Party.
I am well aware, with previous experience, that even though a couple of thousand leaflets may well be dropped in such an exercise, we might well be lucky to receive as little as four enquiries in return. However, I believe that it is absolutely essential that we take the message of our Party out onto the streets as we have little else other than social media to sell or broaden our ideas.
May I add that the one major advantage that we most certainly have is our excellent website – regularly updated, interesting & extremely well written articles, it is a great credit to both the contributers & the webmasters whom run this site that they have managed to produce one of the best in the business.
I might well stand to be corrected, but I’m almost sure when I viewed the on-line recording of the 2017 AGM that plans are currently being drawn up for the production of a new ‘General Leaflet’ – this would indeed be helpful as the section on the EU could nowadays do with a little alteration or refreshment.
I have reason to believe that other Nationalist groups may well be thinking along the same lines as ourselves – most notably ‘Britain First’ & the newly founded ‘For Britain Party’ run by Miss Waters – whilst we wish these people good luck I still think that we’ll manage to hold our own & rattle a few Liberal cages along the way.
Obviously we await much more favourable weather conditions – and, of course, we still shall have to get the leaflets professionally printed, although this shouldn’t cause a problem.
The Ulster branch need to start sometime, somewhere – time to roll up the shirt sleeves & get stuck in. We’ll keep you all informed of how we get on.
Encouraging to read BDP-NI.
There is lots of potential and ways to move the party forward.
Enoch was a most able and visionary politician who spoke out in defence of the TRUE British people only to have his political career ended by the refusal of his own party to support his views and then later to reject him.
Be aware folks! – The Conservative party have not changed their attitude towards immigration since Enoch passed away in 1998, they are still actively encouraging foreign workers to come to this country, in their thousands, to ensure cheap labour is available to sustain British service and manufacturing operations, rather than invest in training British Workers for British Jobs.