Society
Was Powell right? Of course not
Published 17 April 2008
When Powell delivered his speech, Europe was awash with revolutionary zeal. Thousands of young Europeans rose in revolt
Forty years ago, the Conservative MP Enoch Powell delivered a speech in Birmingham aimed at mobilising "the British working man" against those of us who had arrived on these shores through postwar migration.
He spoke of a constituent so concerned by the rising numbers of black immigrants that he was determined to see that his three children settled abroad. Another constituent, an old lady who had lived in her street all her life, had been terrorised by black "piccaninnies". (This account turned out to be inaccurate.)
Powell let fly with a barely disguised attack on Britain's nascent black and Asian communities. Like the Roman, he saw "the Tiber foaming with much blood" as black and white turned on one another. And then came the final solution: mass repatriation of immigrants back to the countries from which we had come.
This year, around the anniversary of his speech, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary series that posed the question: "Was Powell right?" The series rather crudely identified moods and moments in the inner cities which, according to the producers, proved that his predictions were right.
But the fact is that no rivers of blood have flowed in the past 40 years. Racial attacks? Yes! Citizens, black and white, engaged in mass violence against each other? No. The producers suggested that the inner-city riots of 1981 had been a kind of vindication for Powell, but did not acknowledge that while these clashes had been mainly between black youngsters and the police, young white people had joined in - on the side of the black protesters.
Powell's intervention proved to be an unmitigated disaster. He was kicked off the Conservative front bench by the leader, Edward Heath, and his political career in effect ended. Apart from a small section of the white working class that demonstrated in his support, there was little else. His direct descendants in British politics are the members of the puny BNP, and it is to him they owe their existence.
When Powell delivered his speech, Europe was awash with revolutionary zeal. Thousands of young Europeans rose in revolt. Paris, Berlin, Rome and London seethed with discontent. Hands were stretched across the Atlantic to embrace the rising black revolt in the United States. South Africa, Rhodesia, Guinea-Bissau, Mozam bique, Namibia wilted under the presence of mass insurrection. All over the world campuses were transformed into revolutionary centres.
In the UK our immigrant communities were stirring, and it is upon this force in particular that Powell trained his firepower. Initially he had been a pioneer of mass immigration. As minister of health, he canvassed Caribbean women to serve as nurses in British hospitals. He had signed up to the idea that West Indians should be recruited to drive British buses, and Punjabis to produce parts for the engineering industry in British factories and foundries.
He changed his mind only because we were not the servile workers he expected. To raise the question "Was he right?" smacks of political illiteracy and historical bankruptcy. And today any member of parliament who speaks in Powellite language would find him or herself charged with incitement to commit terrorism.
So much has rolled with time.
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