John Enoch Powell is today treated with contempt by our 'liberal' media, and many politicians, who have never forgiven him for having the audacity to voice his constituents' concern over the unprecedented transformation of their community. The hysteria generated by his Rivers of Blood speech eclipsed the rest of his career and unfortunately he is remembered for little else.
Powell, was far more than a controversial politician, though. He was a poet, scholar, author and linguist, and unlike many other notable MPs of his era, he was not born into privilege. Indeed he won a scholarship to King Edward's School, Birmingham and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge from which he graduated with a double starred first in Latin and Greek.
In 1937 he was appointed Professor of Greek at Sydney University, though resigned his position to join the army and fight for his country. Tellingly, he started the war as the youngest professor in the Commonwealth, and ended it with the notable distinction of being the only man in the Second World War to rise from Private to Brigadier.
Enoch aspired to the position of Viceroy of India and to that end learnt Urdu, one of nine languages he spoke. His ambition was never realised after India gained independence in 1947 however, though he still took a keen interest in India and was horrified by reports of violence between Hindus and Muslims. It is this that fuelled his disdain for what he called 'communalism' (or as it is now known, multiculturalism), which he described as the 'the curse of India'.
His belief that multiculturalism was untenable was further entrenched during a visit to the United States at a time when the civil rights movement was in full swing. This must have been pivotal, as less than a decade before his Rivers of Blood speech, Powell had overseen the employment of a large number of Commonwealth immigrants in the NHS whilst Health Minister.
Whatever his motives, Powell knew that the speech he would make would cause controversy "I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing?", he said. Indeed, prescience seems to be another of his considerable attributes, as the resulting furore led to Heath dismissing him from the Shadow Cabinet, though many polls showed that he had the overwhelming support of the electorate. Indeed this is something noted by Powell in a later speech in which he said there was a "gulf between the overwhelming majority of people...[and] a tiny minority, with almost a monopoly hold upon the channels of communication."
Powell's dismissal motivated a thousand London dockers to march on Westminster, so enraged were they with his treatment. In addition he received so many letters of support (nearly one hundred thousand) that the Royal Mail had to assign him a special van to deliver them each day. Conversely, he was vilified by the media - in a speech he made to the London Rotary Club several months later he said "No imputation or innuendo has been too vile or scurrilous for supposedly reputable journals to invent or repeat." Clearly then, his speech had struck a chord with the working man, and yet it appears he had broken a taboo held by journalists and politicians which ultimately cost him his political career.
In a speech made in 1970 Powell went further, suggesting the country was effectively being subverted by what he called the "enemy within":
Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.
Reading through his speeches, Enoch's real legacy is that he discovered this elite within our society hellbent on transforming our country beyond recognition. It is an insidious process, one that has clearly been ongoing for some time, it has manifested itself in various guises - Political Correctness, the stifling of debate and European integration (which Enoch vociferously opposed) being key examples. The latter of course is also something that is happening without our consultation.
As Enoch once said, over a chorus of chanting and booing:
You may think what you are seeing is an exhibition of youthful exuberance and bad manners. It is not. You may think it is harmless. It is not. You may think it is aimed at me. It is not. It is aimed at all of you. They are after you. All of you are their target. Its aim is to see the day to day way of life, the decent things of life, that the majority want, demolished and destroyed. It is a movement that is in its infancy in this country. It is world wide but no mistake about it, it is spreading.
Enoch Powell was a rarity in politics, a man with real integrity and courage - "All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal." - unfortunately that was his downfall.
