John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author,
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
, soldier,
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...
, and poet. He served as a
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was
Minister of Health (1960–1963) then
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...
(UUP) MP (1974–1987).
Before entering politics, Powell was a
classical scholar
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
. During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, he served in both staff and intelligence positions, reaching the rank of
brigadier
Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. ...
. He also wrote poetry, and many books on classical and political subjects.
Powell attracted widespread attention for his
"Rivers of Blood" speech, delivered on 20 April 1968 to the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre. In it, Powell criticised the rates of
immigration into the UK, especially from the
New Commonwealth, and opposed the
anti-discrimination legislation Race Relations Bill. The speech drew sharp criticism from some of Powell's own party members and ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', and
Conservative Party leader Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
dismissed Powell a day after the speech from his position as
Shadow
A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two- dimensional silhouett ...
Defence Secretary.
In the aftermath of the speech, several polls suggested that 67 to 82 per cent of the UK population agreed with Powell's opinions.
[Shepherd 1994, p. 352.] His supporters claimed that the large public following
that Powell attracted helped the Conservatives to win the
1970 general election, and perhaps cost them the
February 1974 general election, when Powell turned his back on the Conservatives by endorsing a vote for Labour, which returned as a
minority government
A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in t ...
. Powell was returned to the House of Commons in October 1974 as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Northern Ireland constituency of
South Down. He represented the constituency until he was defeated at the
1987 general election.
Early years
John Enoch Powell was born in
Stechford
Stechford is an area of East Birmingham, England, situated about five miles east of the city centre, bordering Ward End, Yardley, Hodge Hill and Kitts Green. Historically it lay within Worcestershire.
History
Stechford's history is unclear. ...
, Warwickshire, within the city of
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
, on 16 June 1912, and was baptized at
Newport, Shropshire
Newport is a constituent market town in Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. It lies north of Telford, west of Stafford, and is near the Shropshire-Staffordshire border. The 2001 census recorded 10,814 people living in the town's paris ...
, in the church where his parents had married in 1909. He was the only child of Albert Enoch Powell (1872–1956), a primary school headmaster, and his wife, Ellen Mary (1886–1953). Ellen was the daughter of Henry Breese, a
Liverpool
Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...
policeman, and his wife Eliza, who had been a teacher. His mother did not like his name, and as a child he was known as "Jack". At the age of three, Powell was nicknamed "the Professor" because he used to stand on a chair and describe the stuffed birds his grandfather had shot, which were displayed in his parents' home. In 1918, the family moved to
Kings Norton, Birmingham, where Powell remained until 1930.
The Powells were of
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
descent and from
Radnorshire
, HQ = Presteigne
, Government = Radnorshire County Council (1889–1974) Radnorshire District Council (1974–1996)
, Origin =
, Status = historic county, administrative county
, Start ...
(a Welsh border county), having moved to the developing
Black Country
The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ...
during the early 19th century. His great-grandfather was a
coal miner
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
, and his grandfather had been in the iron trade.
[Roth.]
Powell read avidly from a young age; as early as three he could "read reasonably well". Though not wealthy, the Powells were financially comfortable, and their home included a library. By the age of six Powell was addicted to reading, predominantly history books. Powell's
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
ism and regard for institutions was formed at an early age: around this time his parents took him to
Caernarfon Castle
Caernarfon Castle ( cy, Castell Caernarfon ) – often anglicised as Carnarvon Castle or Caernarvon Castle – is a medieval fortress in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, north-west Wales cared for by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic enviro ...
and he removed his cap when he entered one of the rooms. His father asked him why, to which Powell replied that it was the room where the first
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rule ...
had been born. Every Sunday Powell would give lectures to his parents on the books he had read and he would also conduct
evensong
Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. In origin, it is identical to the canonical hour of vespers. Old English speakers translated the Latin word as , which became ...
and preach a sermon. Once he was old enough to go out on his own, Powell would walk around rural Worcestershire with the aid of
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...
maps, which instilled in him a love for landscape and cartography.
Powell attended a dame school run by a friend of his mother's until he was eleven. He was then a pupil for three years at
King's Norton Grammar School for Boys before he won a scholarship to
King Edward's School, Birmingham in 1925, aged thirteen. The legacy of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
loomed large for Powell: almost all his teachers had fought in the war, and some of the pupils who had scratched their names on the desks had subsequently died in the conflict. Powell also read books on the war, which helped form his opinion that Britain and Germany would fight again.
The head of classics at the school saw that Powell had an interest in the subject and agreed to transfer him to the classics side of the school. Powell's mother taught him
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
in just over two weeks during the Christmas break in 1925 and by the time he started the next term he had attained fluency in Greek that most pupils would reach after two years. Within two terms Powell was top of the classics form. His classmate
Christopher Evans recalled that Powell was "austere" and "really unlike any schoolboy one had known ... He was quite a phenomenon". Another contemporary,
Denis Hills, later said that Powell "carried an armful of books (Greek texts?) and kept to himself ... he was reputed to be cleverer than any of the masters".
Powell won all three of the school's classics prizes (in
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...
,
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
and
Divinity
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.[divine< ...](_blank)
) in the fifth form, two or three years younger than anyone else had won them. He also began to translate Herodotus' ''
Histories
Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to:
* the plural of history
* ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus
* ''The Histories'', by Timaeus
* ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius
* ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), ...
'' and completed the translation of the first part when he was fourteen. He entered the sixth form two years before his classmates and was remembered as a hard-working student; his contemporary
Roy Lewis
Roy Lewis (6 November 1913 – 9 October 1996) was an English writer and small press printer.
Life and work
Although born in Felixstowe, Lewis was brought up in Birmingham and educated at King Edward's School. After studying at University ...
recalled that "we thought that the masters were afraid of him". Powell also won a medal in gymnastics and gained a proficiency in the clarinet. He contemplated studying at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...
but his parents persuaded him to try for a scholarship at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
. Duggie Smith, Powell's form-master in the lower classical sixth and his principal classics master in the upper sixth, recalled in 1952: "Of all my pupils, he always insisted on the highest standards of accuracy and knowledge in those who taught him ... He was a pupil from whom I learnt more than most".
It was during his time at sixth form that Powell learned German and began reading German books, which would influence his move towards atheism. Aged thirteen he also read
James George Frazer
Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
Personal life
He was born on 1 Jan ...
's ''
The Golden Bough
''The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion'' (retitled ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'' in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir ...
'' and
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, ...
's ''
Sartor Resartus
''Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books'' is an 1831 novel by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in ''Fraser's Magazine'' in November 1833 – Augus ...
'', which led him towards
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
and
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
. During the last four years at King Edward's School he was top of his form and won a number of prizes in Greek and Divinity. In 1929 he was awarded the Higher School Certificate with a distinction in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, Greek and ancient history, and won the school's Lee Divinity Prize for an essay on the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
after having memorised
St Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
's
Epistle to the Galatians
The Epistle to the Galatians is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul the Apostle to a number of Early Christian communities in Galatia. Scholars have suggested that this is either the Roman province of Galatia in southe ...
in Greek. Powell also won the Badger Prize for English Literature twice and the Lightfoot Thucydides Prize.
In December 1929, aged seventeen, he sat the classics scholarship paper at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
and won the top award.
Sir Ronald Melville, who sat the exams at the same time, recalled that "the exams mostly lasted three hours. Powell left the room halfway through each of them". Powell later told Melville that in one-and-a-half hours on the Greek paper, he translated the text into Thucydides' style of Greek and then in the style of Herodotus. For another paper, Powell also had to translate a passage from
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom ...
, which he did into
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
nic Greek. In the remaining time, Powell later remembered, "I tore it up and translated it again into Herodotean Greek –
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland acro ...
– (which I had never written before) and then, still having time to spare, I proceeded to annotate it".
He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1930 to 1933. Powell became almost a recluse and devoted his time to studying: on days without lectures or supervisions, he would read from 5.30 in the morning until 9.30 at night. ''
Granta
''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...
'' called him "The Hermit of Trinity". He later said "I thought the only thing to do was to work. I thought that was what I was going to Cambridge for, because I never knew of anything else". At the age of eighteen his first paper to a classical journal was published (in German) to the ''
Philologische Wochenschrift'', on a line of Herodotus. While studying at Cambridge, Powell became aware that there was another classicist who signed his name as "John U. Powell". Powell decided to use his middle name and from that moment referred to himself as "Enoch Powell". Powell won the
Craven scholarship at the beginning of his second term in January 1931, the second time since the scholarship was established in 1647 that a freshman had won it.
It was at Cambridge that Powell fell under the influence of the poet
A. E. Housman, then Professor of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
at the university. He attended Housman's lectures during his second year in 1931 and later recalled that he was "gripped by the spectacle of that rigorous intellect dissecting remorselessly the textual deformation of poetry which his sensitivity would not permit him to read without betraying his emotions"; it was Housman's "ruthless and fearless logic with which he dissected the text" in an atmosphere of "suppressed emotion" that impressed him. Powell also admired Housman's lectures on
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
,
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
,
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
and
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...
. Powell sent him a correction of Virgil's ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of ...
'' and received the reply: "Dear Mr Powell. You analyse the difficulties of the passage correctly, and your emendation removes them. Yours sincerely, A. E. Housman". In later life Powell claimed that "no praise in the next forty years was ever to be so intoxicating".
Powell won a number of prizes, including the Percy Pemberton Prize, the
Porson Prize
The Porson Prize is an award for Greek verse composition at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in honor of classical scholar Richard Porson and was first awarded in 1817. Winners are known as "Porson prizemen".
Winners of the Porson Pr ...
, the Yeats Prize and the Lees Knowles. He won a distinction in Greek and Latin for Part I of his
Classical Tripos
The Classical Tripos is the taught course in classics at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. It is equivalent to Literae Humaniores at Oxford. It is traditionally a three-year degree, but for those who have not previously studied La ...
and was awarded the Members' prize for Latin prose and the First Chancellor's Classical Medal. He also won the Cromer Greek essay prize of the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...
in March 1933, having written on "Thucydides, his moral and historical principles and their influence in later antiquities". Also in 1933, Powell won the
Browne Medal and delivered his winning essay in the
Senate House, Cambridge
The Senate House is a 1720s building of the University of Cambridge in England, used formerly for meetings of its senate and now mainly for graduation ceremonies.
Location and construction
The building, which is situated in the centre of the ...
. The Chancellor of Cambridge University, the Conservative Party leader
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
, told the Master of Trinity
J. J. Thomson: "Powell reads as if he understands". Shortly before his finals in May 1933, Powell became ill with
tonsillitis
Tonsillitis is inflammation of the tonsils in the upper part of the throat. It can be acute or chronic. Acute tonsillitis typically has a rapid onset. Symptoms may include sore throat, fever, enlargement of the tonsils, trouble swallowing, a ...
and then caught
pyelitis. His neighbour in
Trinity Great Court,
Frederick Simpson, arranged that the
Tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mat ...
examination papers be sent to the nursing home where he was convalescing. Despite having a temperature of 104 degrees when he sat the last of the seven papers, Powell gained a
first class with distinction. The Cambridge classical scholar
Martin Charlesworth
Martin Percival Charlesworth (18 January 1895 – 26 October 1950) was a classical scholar.
He was born in Eastham, then in Cheshire, the son of Rev Ambrose Charlesworth, the curate of the parish, and Alice Whish. He was educated at Birkenhead ...
said after Powell's graduation: "That man Powell is extraordinary. He is the best Greek scholar since
Porson".
As well as his education at Cambridge, Powell took a course in
at the School of Oriental Studies, now the
School of Oriental and African Studies
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ...
,
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
, because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming
Viceroy of India
The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
would be unattainable without knowledge of an
Indian language. Later, during his political career he would speak to his Indian-born constituents in Urdu. Powell went on to learn other languages, including
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
(in which he edited jointly with
Stephen J. Williams ''Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda yn ôl Llyfr Blegywryd'', a text on
Cyfraith Hywel, the medieval Welsh law),
modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, and
Portuguese.
Academic career
After graduating from Cambridge, Powell stayed on at Trinity College as a
fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
, spending much of his time studying ancient manuscripts in Latin and producing academic works in Greek and Welsh. He won the Craven travelling scholarship, which he used to fund travels to Italy, where he read Greek manuscripts in libraries. He also learned Italian. On his first trip to Italy, during 1933–1934, he visited
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
and
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...
, and on his second excursion in 1935 he went to Venice,
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...
and
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
. Powell was still convinced of the inevitability of war with Germany after
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
came to power in Germany in 1933: he told his father in 1934, "I want to be in the army from the first day that Britain goes to war". He suffered a spiritual crisis when he heard of the
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...
in July 1934, which shattered his vision of German culture. He later recalled that he sat for hours in a state of shock: "So it had all been illusion, all fantasy, all a self-created myth ... The spiritual homeland had not been a spiritual homeland after all, since nothing can be a homeland, let alone a spiritual homeland, where there is no justice, where justice does not reign".
In 1935, Powell met the German–Jewish classical scholar
Paul Maas in Venice, who confirmed Powell's belief about the nature of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, and he had a "furious" argument with an adherent of
Oswald Mosley's
British Union of Fascists
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...
, who had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Powell of Mosley's merits. He spent his time at Trinity teaching and supervising undergraduates, and worked on a
lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or fo ...
of Herodotus. In January 1936 Powell delivered an address to the
Classical Association on "The War and its Aftermath in their Influence on Thucydidean Studies", which was published in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
''. Since 1932 Powell had been working on the Egyptian manuscripts of
J. Rendel Harris
James Rendel Harris (Plymouth, Devon, 27 January 1852 – 1 March 1941) was an English biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at th ...
and his translation from the Greek into English was published in 1937.
Powell's first collection of poems, ''First Poems'', was published in 1937 and was influenced by Housman. ''
The Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'' reviewed them and said they possessed to a degree "the tone and temper" of Housman's ''
A Shropshire Lad
''A Shropshire Lad'' is a collection of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman, published in 1896. Selling slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting th ...
''. The
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels ''The Midnight Folk'' and ''The Box of Delights'', and the poem ...
told Powell he read them "with a great deal of admiration for their concision and point", and
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. ...
said "I have read them with the greatest pleasure and interest ... I shall always retain them". His second volume of poems, ''Casting Off, and Other Poems'', was printed in 1939. In its review, ''The Times Literary Supplement'' said Powell's "lyrical feeling, reflection, and an epigrammatic conciseness are pleasantly balanced, and he is particularly happy perhaps in saluting the blossoms of spring".
Maurice Cowling
Maurice John Cowling (6 September 1926 – 24 August 2005) was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Early life
Cowling was born in West Norwood, South London, son of Reginald Frederick Cowling (1901–1962), a patent agen ...
appraised Powell's poems as "restrained and pessimistic, and written out of a high sense of human destiny. It expressed the position of youth and had an eschatological overtone characteristic of Housman's repressed tombstone emotion. It registered the resigned, masculine gloom of the Trinity ethos into which he had been inducted". A further collection of poems, ''Dancer's End'' and ''The Wedding Gift'', were published in 1951, and all his poems were published in one volume in 1990. Powell said the first two volumes were "dominated by the War – the War foreseen, the War imminent, and the War actual", and the second group were a "response to a brief period...of intense emotional excitement".
In 1937, he was appointed Professor of Greek at the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
aged 25 (failing in his aim of beating Nietzsche's record of becoming a professor at 24). He was the youngest professor in the British Empire. Among his students was future
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
Prime Minister of Australia
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the h ...
, who described his lectures as 'dry as dust'. He revised
Henry Stuart Jones's edition of
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...
' ''
Historiae'' for the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
in 1938, and his most lasting contribution to classical scholarship was his ''Lexicon to Herodotus'', published by
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pr ...
the same year.
William Lorimer reviewed the lexicon in the ''Classical Review'' and praised Powell's "amazing industry, much thought and care, and fine scholarship". The classicist
Robin Lane Fox
Robin James Lane Fox, (born 5 October 1946) is an English classicist, ancient historian, and gardening writer known for his works on Alexander the Great. Lane Fox is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and Reader in Ancient History, U ...
said the lexicon is "an entirely mechanical production with no intellectual power" but is "nonetheless valuable" and demonstrated Powell's "sharp, clear and nit-picking mind".
Robin Waterfield, in his translation of Herodotus' ''Histories'' for
Oxford World's Classics
Oxford World's Classics is an imprint of Oxford University Press. First established in 1901 by Grant Richards and purchased by OUP in 1906, this imprint publishes primarily dramatic and classic literature for students and the general public. ...
, said Powell's lexicon was "absolutely indispensable". The Australian academic
Athanasius Treweek called it "the most fantastically accurate work of this type that I have ever handled".
Soon after arrival in Australia, he was appointed Curator of the
Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney. He stunned the vice-chancellor by informing him that war would soon begin in Europe and that when it did, he would be heading home to enlist in the army. He later recalled that his attitude towards Germany was of "great hatred as well as fear ... a fear of my country being defeated" and in his inaugural lecture as professor of Greek on 7 May 1938 he condemned Britain's policy of
appeasement
Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governme ...
and prophesied the coming war with Germany. During his time in Australia as a professor, he grew increasingly angry at the appeasement of
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
and what he saw as a betrayal of the UK's national interests. After
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeaseme ...
's first visit to
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
at
Berchtesgaden
Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps, south of Berchtesgaden; th ...
, Powell wrote in a letter to his parents on 18 September 1938:
During the winter of 1938–1939 he travelled to Britain to arrange his appointment as professor of Greek and classical literature at
Durham University
, mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills ( Psalm 87:1)
, established = (university status)
, type = Public
, academic_staff = 1,830 (2020)
, administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19)
, chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen
, vice_cha ...
, which he was due to take up in 1940. After his arrival in Britain he visited Germany and later remembered his "sensation of embarrassment on producing a British passport at the German frontier in December 1938". He met again Paul Maas, other German Jews and members of the
anti-Nazi movement, and helped Maas obtain a British visa from the British consul, which enabled Maas to escape Germany just before war broke out.
In another letter to his parents in June 1939, before the beginning of war, Powell wrote: "It is the English, not their Government; for if they were not blind cowards, they would lynch Chamberlain and
Halifax and all the other smarmy traitors". At the outbreak of war, Powell immediately returned to the UK, but not before buying a Russian dictionary, since he thought "Russia would hold the key to our survival and victory, as it had in
1812
Events
January–March
* January 1 – The ''Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch'' (the Austrian civil code) enters into force in the Austrian Empire.
* January 19 – Peninsular War: The French-held fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo is st ...
and
1916
Events
Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix.
January
* January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled.
* J ...
".
Military service
During October 1939, almost a month after returning home from Australia, Powell enlisted as a private in the
Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He had trouble enlisting, as during the "
Phoney War
The Phoney War (french: Drôle de guerre; german: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germa ...
" the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
did not want men with no military training. Rather than waiting to be called up, he claimed to be Australian, as Australians, many of whom had travelled to Britain at great expense to join up, were allowed to enlist straight away. In a poem, he wrote of men joining the army like "bridegrooms going to meet their brides", but his biographer points out that it is unlikely that many other men shared his joy, particularly not those who were leaving actual brides behind. He purchased a copy of
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...
's ''
On War
''Vom Kriege'' () is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife Marie von Brühl in 1832. ...
'' in the original German in a second-hand bookshop, which he read every night.
In later years, Powell recorded his promotion from private to lance-corporal in his ''
Who's Who
''Who's Who'' (or ''Who is Who'') is the title of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biographical information on the prominent people of a country. The title has been adopted as an expression meaning a group of not ...
'' entry, on other occasions describing it as a greater promotion than entering the Cabinet. Early in 1940, he was trained for a commission after, while working in a kitchen, answering the question of an inspecting brigadier with a Greek proverb; on several occasions, he told colleagues that he expected to be at least a major-general by the end of the war. He passed out top from his officer training.
On 18 May 1940, Powell was one of the cadets from the 166th, 167th, 168th, and 170th Officer Cadet Training Units commissioned as a second lieutenant onto the
General List
The General Service Corps (GSC) is a corps of the British Army.
Role
The role of the corps is to provide specialists, who are usually on the Special List or General List. These lists were used in both World Wars for specialists and those not allo ...
. He was almost immediately transferred to the
Intelligence Corps. He was soon promoted to captain and posted as GSO3 (Intelligence) to the 1st (later 9th) Armoured Division. During this time he taught himself the
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, ...
to read the poet
Camões in the original; as insufficient Russian-speaking officers were available at the War Office, his knowledge of the Russian language and textual analysis skills were used to translate a Russian parachute training manual—a task he completed after 11 pm in addition to his normal duties, deducing the meaning of many technical terms from the context; he was convinced that the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
must eventually enter the war on the Allied side. On one occasion, he was arrested as a suspected German spy for singing the ''
Horst-Wessel-Lied
The "" ("Horst Wessel Song"; ), also known by its opening words "" ("Raise the Flag", ), was the anthem of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 1930 to 1945. From 1933 to 1945, the Nazis made it the co-national anthem of Germany, along with the first sta ...
''. He was sent to the
Staff College, Camberley
Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, whic ...
.
In October 1941, Powell was posted to
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
and transferred back to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. As secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee, Middle East, he was soon doing work that would normally have been done by a more senior officer and was (May 1942, backdated to December 1941) promoted to major. He was promoted to
lieutenant-colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colo ...
in August 1942, telling his parents that he was doing the work of three people and expected to be a brigadier within a year or two, and in that role helped plan the
Second Battle of El Alamein
The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa had prevented th ...
, having previously helped plan the attack on
Rommel's supply lines. Powell and his team began work at 0400 each day to digest radio intercepts and other intelligence data (such as estimating how many tanks Rommel currently had and what his likely plans were) ready to present to the chiefs of staff at 0900. The following year, he was appointed a
Member of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
for his military service.
It was in
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...
that the beginning of Powell's distrust of the United States began. After socially mixing with senior American officers that he met and exploring their cultural views of the world, he became convinced that one of America's war aims was to destroy the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
. Writing home on 16 February 1943, Powell stated: "I see growing on the horizon the greater peril than Germany or Japan ever were... our terrible enemy, America". Powell's suspicion of the anti-British Empire demeanour of the U.S. Government's foreign policy continued for the remainder of the war and into his subsequent post-war political career. He cut out and retained an article from the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' magazine published on 13 November 1943 in which the American writer and diplomat
Clare Boothe Luce
Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which ha ...
said in a speech that
Indian independence from the British Empire would mean that the "USA will really have won the greatest war in the world for democracy".
After the Axis defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Powell's attention increasingly moved to the Far East theatre, and he wanted to go there to take part in the campaign against the
Japanese Imperial Army because: "the war in Europe was won now", and he wanted to see the
Union Flag
The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. Although no law has been passed making the Union Flag the official national flag of the United Kingdom, it has effectively become such through precedent. ...
back in Singapore before, Powell feared, the Americans beat the British Empire to it and secured an imperial domination of their own over the region. He had at this time an ambition to be assigned to the
Chindits units operating in
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
, and secured an interview with their Commander
Orde Wingate
Major General Orde Charles Wingate, (26 February 1903 – 24 March 1944) was a senior British Army officer known for his creation of the Chindit deep-penetration missions in Japanese-held territory during the Burma Campaign of the Second Worl ...
to this end while the latter was on a temporary stop-over in Cairo, but Powell's duties and rank precluded the assignment. Having declined two posts carrying the rank of full colonel (in Algiers and Cairo, which would have left him in the now moribund
North African theatre "indefinitely"), and despite expecting to have to accept a reduction in rank to major in order to get the transfer, he secured a posting to the British Imperial Indian Army in Delhi as a lieutenant-colonel in military intelligence in August 1943. Within a few days of arriving in India, Powell bought as many books as he could about India and read them avidly. On one occasion, he wrote to his parents in a letter "I soaked up India like a sponge soaks up water."
Powell was appointed Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee for India and
Louis Mountbatten
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of German ...
's
South East Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
Command, involved in planning an amphibious offensive against
Akyab
Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers emp ...
, an island off the coast of Burma.
Orde Wingate
Major General Orde Charles Wingate, (26 February 1903 – 24 March 1944) was a senior British Army officer known for his creation of the Chindit deep-penetration missions in Japanese-held territory during the Burma Campaign of the Second Worl ...
, also involved in planning that operation, had taken such a dislike to Powell that he asked a colleague to restrain him if he were tempted to "beat his brains in".
On one occasion, Powell's yellow skin (he was recovering from
jaundice
Jaundice, also known as icterus, is a yellowish or greenish pigmentation of the skin and sclera due to high bilirubin levels. Jaundice in adults is typically a sign indicating the presence of underlying diseases involving abnormal heme meta ...
), over-formal dress and strange manner caused him to be mistaken for a Japanese spy. During this period, he declined to meet a Cambridge academic colleague,
Glyn Daniel, for a drink or dinner as he was devoting his limited leisure time to studying the poet
John Donne. Powell had continued to learn Urdu and was taught by a nephew of the Urdu poet
Altaf Hussain Hali. He had an unrealised ambition to compose a critical edition of Hali's
Musaddas Musaddas () is a genre of Urdu poetry in which each unit consists of 6 lines- sestain- (''misra''). Famous early writers employing this form are Mir Anis and Dabeer. Maulana Altaf Husain Hali and Waheed Akhtar
Syed Waheed Akhtar ( ur, ) (12 A ...
, ''The Rise and Fall of Islam''. He also had an ambition of becoming
Viceroy of India
The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
, and when Mountbatten transferred his staff to
Kandy
Kandy ( si, මහනුවර ''Mahanuwara'', ; ta, கண்டி Kandy, ) is a major city in Sri Lanka located in the Central Province. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills ...
,
Ceylon, Powell chose to remain in Delhi. He was promoted to full colonel at the end of March 1944, as assistant director of military intelligence in India, giving intelligence support to the
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
campaign of
William Slim
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
.
Having begun the war as the youngest professor in the British Empire, Powell ended it as a
brigadier
Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. I ...
. He was given the promotion to serve on a committee of generals and brigadiers to plan the postwar defence of India: the resulting 470-page report was almost entirely written by Powell. For a few weeks he was the youngest brigadier in the British Army, and he was one of only two men in the entire war to rise from private to brigadier (the other being
Fitzroy Maclean). He was offered a regular commission as a brigadier in the Indian Army, and the post of assistant commandant of an Indian officers' training academy, which he declined. He told a colleague that he expected to be head of all military intelligence in "the next war".
Powell never experienced combat and felt guilty for having survived, writing that soldiers who did so carried "a sort of shame with them to the grave" and referring to the Second Battle of El Alamein as a "separating flame" between the living and the dead. When once asked how he would like to be remembered, he at first answered, "Others will remember me as they will remember me", but when pressed he replied, "I should like to have been killed in the war".
Entry into politics
Joining the Conservative Party
Though he voted for the
Labour Party in their
1945 landslide victory, because he wanted to punish the Conservative Party for the
Munich agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...
, after the war he joined the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
and worked for the
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
The CRD has been descr ...
under
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician. ''The Times'' obituary c ...
, where his colleagues included
Iain Macleod and
Reginald Maudling
Reginald Maudling (7 March 1917 – 14 February 1979) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1962 to 1964 and as Home Secretary from 1970 to 1972. From 1955 until the late 1960s, he was spoken of as a prospecti ...
.
Powell's ambition to be
Viceroy of India
The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
crumbled in February 1947, when Prime Minister
Clement Attlee announced that
Indian independence was imminent. Powell was so shocked by the change of policy that he spent the whole night after it was announced walking the streets of London.
He came to terms with it by becoming fiercely anti-imperialist, believing that once India had gone the whole empire should follow it. This
logical absolutism explained his later indifference to the
Suez crisis, his contempt for the Commonwealth and his urging that the UK should end any remaining pretence that it was a world power.
Election to Parliament
After unsuccessfully contesting the Labour Party's
safe seat of
Normanton at a
by-election in 1947 (when the Labour majority was 62 per cent), he was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for
Wolverhampton South West
Wolverhampton South West is a constituency created in 1950 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Stuart Anderson of the Conservative Party.
It was represented by the Conservative Party for 47 years after its ...
at the
1950 general election.
First years as a backbencher
On 16 March 1950, Powell made his
maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.
Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...
, speaking on a White Paper on Defence and beginning by saying, "There is no need for me to pretend those feelings of awe and hesitation which assail any honourable Member who rises to address this House for the first time."
On 3 March 1953, Powell spoke against the
Royal Titles Bill in the House of Commons. He said he found three major changes to the style of the United Kingdom, "all of which seem to me to be evil". The first one was "that in this title, for the first time, will be recognised a principle hitherto never admitted in this country, namely, the divisibility of the crown." Powell said that the unity of the realm had evolved over centuries and included the British Empire: "It was a unit because it had one Sovereign. There was one Sovereign: one realm." He feared that by "recognising the division of the realm into separate realms, are we not opening the way for that other remaining unity—the last unity of all—that of the person, to go the way of the rest?"
The second change he objected to was "the suppression of the word 'British', both from before the words 'Realms and Territories' where it is replaced by the words 'her other' and from before the word 'Commonwealth', which, in the
Statute of Westminster, is described as the 'British Commonwealth of Nations:
Powell said that the answer was that because the
British Nationality Act 1948
The British Nationality Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on British nationality law which defined British nationality by creating the status of "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies" (CUKC) as the sole national ci ...
had removed allegiance to the crown as the basis of citizenship and replaced that with nine separate citizenships combined together by statute. Therefore, if any of these nine countries became republics the law would not change, as happened with India when it became a republic. Furthermore, Powell went on, the essence of unity was "that all the parts recognise they would sacrifice themselves to the interests of the whole." He denied that there was in India that "recognition of belonging to a greater whole which involves the ultimate consequence in certain circumstances of self-sacrifice in the interests of the whole." Therefore, the title 'Head of the Commonwealth', the third major change, was "essentially a sham. They are essentially something which we have invented to blind ourselves to the reality of the position."
These changes were "greatly repugnant" to Powell:
For the rest of his life, Powell regarded this speech as the finest he ever delivered (rather than the much more well-known 1968 anti-immigration speech).
In mid-November 1953, Powell secured a place on the
1922 Committee
The 1922 Committee, formally known as the Conservative Private Members' Committee, is the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The committee, consisting of all Conservative backbench member ...
's executive at the third attempt. Butler also invited him onto the committee that reviewed party policy for the general election, which he attended until 1955. Powell was a member of the Suez Group of MPs who were against the removal of British troops from the
Suez Canal, because such a move would demonstrate, Powell argued, that the UK could no longer maintain a position there, and that any claim to the Suez Canal would therefore be illogical. However, after the troops had left in June 1956 and the Egyptians nationalised the Canal a month later, Powell opposed the attempt to retake the canal in the
Suez Crisis because he thought the British no longer had the resources to be a world power.
In and out of office
Junior Housing Minister
On 21 December 1955, Powell was appointed parliamentary secretary to
Duncan Sandys
Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...
at the
Ministry of Housing. He called it "the best ever Christmas box". In early 1956, he spoke for the
Housing Subsidies Bill in the Commons and argued for the rejection of an amendment that would have hindered slum clearances. He also spoke in support of the
Slum Clearances Bill, which provided entitlement for full compensation for those who purchased a house after August 1939 and still occupied it in December 1955 if this property would be compulsorily purchased by the government if it was deemed unfit for human habitation.
In early 1956, Powell attended a subcommittee on immigration control as a housing minister and advocated immigration controls. In August, he gave a speech at a meeting of the Institute of Personnel Management and was asked a question about immigration. He answered that limiting immigration would require a change in the law: "There might be circumstances in which such a change of the law might be the lesser of two evils". But he added, "There would be very few people who would say the time had yet come when it was essential that so great a change should be made". Powell later told
Paul Foot that the statement was made "out of loyalty to the Government line". Powell also spoke for the Rent Bill, which ended wartime
rent controls
Rent regulation is a system of laws, administered by a court or a public authority, which aims to ensure the affordability of housing and tenancies on the rental market for dwellings. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves:
*Price cont ...
when existing tenants moved out, thereby phasing out regulation.
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
At a meeting of the 1922 Committee on 22 November 1956, Butler made a speech appealing for party unity in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. His speech did not go down well and
Harold Macmillan, whom Butler had taken along for moral support, addressed them and was a great success. In Powell's view this was "one of the most horrible things that I remember in politics ... seeing the way in which Harold Macmillan, with all the skill of the old actor-manager, succeeded in false-footing Rab. The sheer devilry of it verged upon the disgusting". After Macmillan's death in 1986 Powell said "Macmillan was a Whig, not a Tory ... he had no use for the Conservative loyalties and affections; they interfered too much with the Whig's true vocation of detecting trends in events and riding them skilfully so as to preserve the privileges, property and interests of his class". However, when Macmillan replaced Eden as Prime Minister, Powell was offered the office of
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the first lord of the Treasury, the chancellor of the Excheq ...
on 14 January 1957. This office was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's deputy and the most important job outside the Cabinet.
In January 1958 he resigned, along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Peter Thorneycroft
George Edward Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft, (26 July 1909 – 4 June 1994) was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1957 and 1958.
Early life
Born in Dunston, Staffordshire, Thorn ...
and his Treasury colleague
Nigel Birch, in protest at government plans for increased expenditure; he was a staunch advocate of disinflation, or, in modern terms, a
monetarist, and a believer in market forces. Powell was also a member of the
Mont Pelerin Society
The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) is an international organization composed of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals and business leaders.Michael Novak, 'The Moral Imperative of a Free Economy', in '' The 4% Solution: Unleashing the E ...
. The by-product of this expenditure was the printing of extra money to pay for it all, which Powell believed to be the cause of inflation, and in effect a form of taxation, as the holders of money find their money is worth less. Inflation rose to 2.5 per cent, a high figure for the era, especially in peacetime.
During the late 1950s, Powell promoted control of the money supply to prevent inflation and, during the 1960s, was an advocate of
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
policies, which at the time were seen as extreme, unworkable and unpopular. Powell advocated the privatisation of the
Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...
and the telephone network as early as 1964, over 20 years before the latter actually took place; and 47 years before the former occurred. He both scorned the idea of "consensus politics" and wanted the Conservative Party to become a modern business-like party, freed from its old aristocratic and "old boy network" associations. In his 1958 resignation over public spending and what he saw as an inflationary economic policy, he anticipated almost exactly the views that during the 1980s came to be described as "monetarism".
Hola Massacre speech
On 27 July 1959, Powell delivered a speech on the
Hola Camp of Kenya, where eleven
Mau Mau were killed after refusing work in the camp. Powell noted that some MPs had described the eleven as "sub-human", but Powell responded by saying: "In general, I would say that it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgement on a fellow human being and to say, 'Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow'."
Powell also disagreed with the notion that because it was in Africa, different methods were acceptable:
Denis Healey, a member of parliament from 1952 to 1992, later said this speech was "the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard ... it had all the moral passion and rhetorical force of
Demosthenes
Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual pr ...
". ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' report of the speech said that "as Mr Powell sat down, he put his hand across his eyes. His emotion was justified, for he had made a great and sincere speech".
Minister of Health
Powell returned to the government in July 1960, when he was appointed
Health minister A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services.
Some governments have separate ministers for mental health.
Coun ...
, although he did not become a member of the Cabinet until 1962. During a meeting with parents of babies that had been born with deformities caused by the drug
thalidomide
Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is a medication used to treat a number of cancers (including multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications o ...
, he was unsympathetic to the victims, refusing to meet any babies affected by the drug.
Powell also refused to launch a
public inquiry, and resisted calls to issue a warning against any left-over thalidomide pills that might remain in people's medicine cabinets (as US President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
had done).
In this job, he developed the 1962 Hospital Plan. He began a debate on the neglect of the huge
psychiatric institutions, calling for them to be replaced by wards in general hospitals. In his 1961 "Water Tower" speech, he said:
The speech catalysed a debate that was one of several strands leading to the
Care in the Community initiative of the 1980s. In 1993, however, Powell stated that his policy could have worked. He said the criminally insane should have never been released and that the problem was one of funding. He said the new way of caring for the mentally ill would cost more, not less, than the old way because community care was decentralised and intimate as well as being "more human". His successors had not, Powell claimed, provided the money for local authorities to spend on mental health care and therefore institutional care had been neglected while at the same time there was not any investment in community care.
After his speech on immigration in 1968, Powell's political opponents sometimes alleged that he had, when Minister of Health, recruited immigrants from the Commonwealth into the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
(NHS). However, the Minister of Health was not responsible for recruitment (this was left to health authorities) and Sir
George Godber
Sir George Edward Godber (4 August 1908 – 7 February 2009) served as Chief Medical Officer for Her Majesty's Government in England from 1960 to 1973. He was also part of the team that planned the National Health Service (NHS) and, as deputy Ch ...
,
Chief Medical Officer for Her Majesty's Government in England from 1960 to 1973, stated that the allegation was "bunk ... absolute rubbish. There was no such policy". Powell's biographer
Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
also stated that the claim "is a complete untruth. As Powell's biographer I have been thoroughly through the Ministry of Health papers at the Public Record Office and have found no evidence to support this assertion".
During the early 1960s, Powell was asked about the recruitment of immigrant workers for the NHS. He replied by saying "recruitment was in the hands of the hospital authorities, but this was something that happened of its own accord given that there was no bar upon entry and employment in the United Kingdom to those from the West Indies or anywhere else
n the Commonwealth or colonies"
Powell did welcome immigrant nurses and doctors, under the condition that they were to be temporary workers training in the UK and would then return to their native countries as qualified doctors or nurses.
Shortly after becoming Minister of Health, Powell asked Butler (the Home Secretary), if he could be appointed to a ministerial committee which monitored immigration and was about to be re-constituted.
Powell was worried about the strain by NHS immigrants, and papers show that he wanted a stronger restriction on Commonwealth immigration than what was passed in 1961.
1960s
Leadership elections
In October 1963, along with
Iain Macleod,
Reginald Maudling
Reginald Maudling (7 March 1917 – 14 February 1979) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1962 to 1964 and as Home Secretary from 1970 to 1972. From 1955 until the late 1960s, he was spoken of as a prospecti ...
and
Lord Hailsham
Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancello ...
, Powell tried in vain to persuade Butler not to serve under
Alec Douglas-Home, in the belief that the latter would be unable to form a government. Powell commented that they had given Butler a revolver, which he had refused to use in case it made a noise or hurt anyone. Macleod and Powell refused to serve in Home's Cabinet. This refusal is not usually attributed to personal antipathy to Douglas-Home but rather to anger at what Macleod and Powell saw as Macmillan's underhand manipulation of colleagues during the process of choosing a new leader. However, at the meeting at his house on the evening of 17 October, Powell, who still enjoyed a liberal reputation on racial issues after his Hola Massacre Speech, reportedly said of Home: "How can I serve under a man whose views on Africa are positively
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
?"
During the
1964 general election, Powell said in his election address, "it was essential, for the sake not only of our own people but of the immigrants themselves, to introduce control over the numbers allowed in. I am convinced that strict control must continue if we are to avoid the evils of a 'colour question' in this country, for ourselves and for our children".
Norman Fowler
Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, (born 2 February 1938) is a British politician who served as a member of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major's ministries during the 1980s and 1990s. He held the office of Lord Speaker from 1 September 201 ...
, then a reporter for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', interviewed Powell during the election and asked him what the biggest issue was: "I expected to be told something about the cost of living but not a bit of it. 'Immigration,' replied Powell. I duly phoned in my piece but it was never used. After all, who in 1964 had ever heard of a former Conservative cabinet minister thinking that immigration was an important political issue?"
Following the Conservatives' defeat in the election, he agreed to return to the front bench as Transport Spokesman.
In July 1965, he stood in the first-ever
party leadership election but came a distant third to
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
, obtaining only 15 votes, just below the result
Hugh Fraser would gain in the 1975 contest. Heath appointed him Shadow Secretary of State for Defence. Powell said that he had "left his visiting card", i.e. demonstrated himself to be a potential future leader, but the immediate effect was to demonstrate his limited support in the Parliamentary Party, enabling Heath to feel more comfortable calling his bluff.
Shadow Defence Secretary
In his first speech to the Conservative Party conference as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence on 14 October 1965, Powell outlined a fresh defence policy, jettisoning what he saw as outdated global military commitments left over from the UK's imperial past and stressing that the UK was a European power and therefore an alliance with Western European states from possible attack from the East was central to the UK's safety. He defended the UK's nuclear weapons and argued that it was "the merest casuistry to argue that if the weapon and the means of using it are purchased in part, or even altogether, from another nation, therefore the independent right to use it has no reality. With a weapon so catastrophic, it is possession and the right to use which count". Also, Powell called into question Western military commitments
East of Suez
East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to interests beyond the European theatre, and east of the Suez Canal, and may or may not include the Middle East. :
The ''Daily Telegraph'' journalist
David Howell remarked to Andrew Alexander that Powell had "just withdrawn us from East of Suez, and received an enormous ovation because no-one understood what he was talking about". However, the Americans were worried by Powell's speech as they wanted British military commitments in South-East Asia as they were still fighting in Vietnam. A transcript of the speech was sent to Washington and the American embassy requested to talk to Heath about the "Powell doctrine". ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' said Powell's speech was "a potential declaration of independence from American policy". During the
election campaign of 1966, Powell claimed that the British government had contingency plans to send at least a token British force to Vietnam and that, under Labour, "Britain has behaved perfectly clearly and perfectly recognisably as an American satellite".
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
had indeed asked Wilson for some British forces for Vietnam, and when it was later suggested to Powell that Washington understood that the public reaction to Powell's allegations had made Wilson realise he would not have favourable public opinion and so could not go through with it, Powell responded: "The greatest service I have performed for my country, if that is so". Labour was returned with a large majority, and Powell was retained by Heath as Shadow Defence Secretary as he believed Powell "was too dangerous to leave out".
In a controversial speech on 26 May 1967, Powell criticised the UK's post-war world role:
In 1967, Powell spoke of his opposition to the immigration of Kenyan Asians to the United Kingdom after the African country's leader
Jomo Kenyatta's discriminatory policies led to the flight of
Asians from that country.
The biggest argument Powell and Heath had during Powell's time in the Shadow Cabinet was over a dispute over the role of
Black Rod, who would go to the Commons to summon them to the Lords to hear the Royal Assent of Bills. In November 1967, Black Rod arrived during a debate on the EEC and was met with cries of "Shame" to Op it". At the next Shadow Cabinet meeting Heath said this "nonsense" must be stopped. Powell suggested that Heath did not mean it should be ended. He asked whether Heath realised that the words Black Rod used went back to the 1307 Parliament of Carlisle and were ancient even then. Heath reacted furiously, saying that the British people "were tired of this nonsense and ceremonial and mummery. He would not stand for the perpetuation of this ridiculous business etc".
National figure
'Rivers of Blood' speech
The Birmingham-based television company
ATV saw an advance copy of the speech on the Saturday morning, and its news editor ordered a television crew to go to the venue, where they filmed sections of the speech. Earlier in the week, Powell said to his friend Clement 'Clem' Jones, a journalist and then editor at the
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...
''
Express & Star
The ''Express & Star'' is a regional evening newspaper in Britain. Founded in 1889, it is based in Wolverhampton, England, and covers the West Midlands county and Staffordshire.
Currently edited by Martin Wright, the ''Express & Star'' publish ...
'', "I'm going to make a speech at the weekend and it's going to go up 'fizz' like a rocket; but whereas all rockets fall to the earth, this one is going to stay up."
The separation between patriotism and racism and between nationalism and separatism remains of some controversy even today. Powell has remained a controversial and yet prominent figure and has been cited by
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...
as his "political hero."
Powell was renowned for his oratorical skills and his maverick nature. On 20 April 1968, he gave a speech in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
in which he warned his audience of what he believed would be the consequences of continued unchecked mass immigration from the Commonwealth to the UK. Above all, it is an allusion to the Roman poet
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
towards the end of the speech which has been remembered, giving the speech its colloquial name:
''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'' declared it "an evil speech", stating, "This is the first time that a serious British politician has appealed to racial hatred in this direct way in our postwar history."
The main political issue addressed by the speech was not immigration as such, however. It was the introduction of the
Race Relations Act 1968
The Race Relations Act 1968 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom making it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins in Great Britain (although n ...
(by the Labour Government at the time), which Powell found offensive and immoral. The Act would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of
race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
in certain areas of British life, particularly housing, where many local authorities had been refusing to provide houses for immigrant families until they had lived in the country for a certain number of years.
One feature of his speech was the extensive quotation of a letter he received detailing the experiences of one of his constituents in
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...
. The writer described the fate of an elderly woman who was supposedly the last White person living in her street. She had repeatedly refused applications from non-Whites requiring rooms-to-let, which resulted in her being called a "racialist" outside her home and receiving "excreta" through her letterbox.
When Heath telephoned
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
to tell her that he was going to sack Powell, she responded: "I really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". Heath sacked Powell from his
Shadow cabinet the day after the speech and he never held another senior political post again. Powell received almost 120,000 (predominantly positive) letters and a
Gallup poll
Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its ...
at the end of April showed that 74 per cent of those asked agreed with his speech and only 15 per cent disagreed, with 11 per cent unsure. One poll concluded that between 61 and 73 per cent disagreed with Heath sacking Powell.
According to George L. Bernstein, many British people felt that Powell "was the first British politician who was actually listening to them".
After ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' branded his speeches "racialist", Powell sued it for
libel, but withdrew when he was required to provide the letters he had quoted from because he had promised anonymity for the writer, who refused to waive it.
Powell had also expressed his opposition to the Race Relations legislation being put into place by the
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
Prime Minister
Harold Wilson at the time.
Following the "Rivers of Blood" speech, Powell was transformed into a national public figure and won huge support across the UK.
Three days after the speech, on 23 April, as the Race Relations Bill was being debated in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
, 1,000 dockers marched on Westminster protesting against the "
victimisation
Victimisation ( or victimization) is the process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.
Peer victimisation
Peer victimisa ...
" of Powell, with slogans such as "we want Enoch Powell!" and "Enoch here, Enoch there, we want Enoch everywhere". The next day, 400 meat porters from Smithfield market handed in a 92-page petition in support of Powell, amidst other mass demonstrations of working-class support, much of it from trade unionists, in London and Wolverhampton.
Conservative politician
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served ...
stated that in the aftermath of the "Rivers of blood" speech, if Enoch Powell had stood for leadership of the Conservative party he would have won "by a landslide" and if he had stood to be Prime Minister he would have won by a "national landslide".
'Morecambe Budget'
Powell made a speech in
Morecambe on 11 October 1968 on the economy, setting out alternative, radical free-market policies that would later be called the 'Morecambe Budget'. Powell used the financial year of 1968–69 to show how income tax could be halved from 8s 3d to 4s 3d in the pound (basic rate cut from 41 to 21 per cent) and how capital gains tax and
Selective Employment Tax
Selective Employment Tax (SET) was a weekly payroll tax in the United Kingdom. It was levied against employers at a flat rate of per man, and per woman.
SET was intended to subsidise manufacturing industry from the proceeds of the services ind ...
could be abolished without reducing expenditure on defence or the social services. These tax reductions required a saving of £2,855,000,000 and this would be funded by eradicating losses in the nationalised industries and privatising the profit-making state concerns; ending all housing subsidies except for those who could not afford their own housing; ending all foreign aid; ending all grants and subsidies in agriculture; ending all assistance to development areas; ending all investment grants; and abolishing the
National Economic Development Council
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
and the
Prices and Incomes Board. The cuts in taxation would also allow the state to borrow from the public to spend on capital projects such as hospitals and roads and spend on "the firm and humane treatment of criminals".
House of Lords reform
In mid-1968, Powell's book ''The House of Lords in the Middle Ages'' was published after twenty years' work. At the press conference for its publication, Powell said if the government introduced a Bill to reform the Lords he would be its "resolute enemy". Later in 1968, when the Labour government published its Bills for the new session, Powell was angry at Heath's acceptance of the plan drawn up by the Conservative
Iain Macleod and Labour's
Richard Crossman
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the ...
to reform the Lords, titled the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. Crossman, opening the debate on 19 November, said the government would reform the Lords in five ways: removing the voting rights of hereditary peers; making sure no party had a permanent majority; ensuring the government of the day usually passed its laws; weakening the Lords' powers to delay new laws; and abolishing the power to refuse subordinate legislation if it had been passed by the Commons. Powell spoke in the debate, opposing these plans. He said the reforms were "unnecessary and undesirable" and that there was no weight in the claim that the Lords could "check or frustrate the firm intentions" of the Commons.
Powell said that only election or nomination could replace the hereditary nature of the Lords. If they were elected it would pose the dilemma of which House was truly representative of the electorate. He also had another objection: "How can the same electorate be represented in two ways so that the two sets of representatives can conflict and disagree with one another?" Those nominated would be bound to the Chief Whip of their party through a sort of oath and Powell asked "what sort of men and women are they to be who would submit to be nominated to another chamber upon condition that they will be mere dummies, automatic parts of a voting machine?" He also stated that the inclusion in the proposals of thirty
crossbenchers
A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...
was "a grand absurdity", because they would have been chosen "upon the very basis that they have no strong views of principle on the way in which the country ought to be governed".
Powell said the Lords derived their authority not from a strict hereditary system but from its prescriptive nature: "It has long been so, and it works". He then added that there was not any widespread desire for reform: he indicated a recent survey of working-class voters that showed that only one-third of them wanted to reform or abolish the House of Lords, with another third believing the Lords were an "intrinsic part of the national traditions of Britain". Powell deduced from this, "As so often, the ordinary rank and file of the electorate have seen a truth, an important fact, which has escaped so many more clever people—the underlying value of that which is traditional, that which is prescriptive".
Following more speeches against the Bill during early 1969, and faced with the fact a bloc of left-wing Labour members were also against reforming the House of Lords as they desired its abolition altogether,
Harold Wilson announced on 17 April that the Bill was being withdrawn. Wilson's statement was brief, with Powell intervening: "Don't eat them too quickly", which provoked much laughter in the House. Later that day Powell said in a speech to the
Primrose League
The Primrose League was an organisation for spreading Conservative principles in Great Britain. It was founded in 1883.
At a late point in its existence, its declared aims (published in the ''Primrose League Gazette'', vol. 83, no. 2, March/April ...
:
Powell's biographer,
Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
, described the defeat of Lords reform as "perhaps the greatest triumph of Powell's political career".
In 1969, when it was first suggested that the United Kingdom should join the
European Economic Community, Powell spoke openly of his opposition to such a move.
Departure from the Conservative Party
A
Gallup poll
Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its ...
in February 1969 showed Powell to be the "most admired person" in British public opinion.
In a defence debate in March 1970, Powell said that "the whole theory of the tactical nuclear weapon, or the tactical use of nuclear weapons, is an unmitigated absurdity" and that it was "remotely improbable" that any group of nations engaged in war would "decide upon general and mutual suicide", and advocated enlargement of the UK's conventional forces. However, when fellow Conservative
Julian Amery
Harold Julian Amery, Baron Amery of Lustleigh, (27 March 1919 – 3 September 1996) was a British Conservative Party politician, who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 39 of the 42 years between 1950 and 1992. He was appointed to the Pr ...
later in the debate criticised Powell for his antinuclear pronouncements, Powell responded: "I have always regarded the possession of the nuclear capability as a protection against
nuclear blackmail. It is a protection against being threatened with
nuclear weapons. What it is not a protection against is war".
The
1970 general election took place on 18 June and was unexpectedly won by the Conservatives, with a late surge in their support. Powell's supporters claim that he contributed to this surprise victory. In "exhaustive research" on the election, the American pollster Douglas Schoen and University of Oxford academic R. W. Johnson believed it "beyond dispute" that Powell had attracted 2.5 million votes to the Conservatives, but the Conservative vote had increased by only 1.7 million since 1966.
Powell had voted against the
Schuman Declaration
The Schuman Declaration, or Schuman Plan, was a proposal to place French and West German production of coal and steel under a single authority that later became the European Coal and Steel Community, made by the French foreign minister, Rober ...
in 1950 and had supported entry into the
European Coal and Steel Community only because he believed that it was simply a means to secure free trade. In March 1969, he opposed the UK's joining the
European Economic Community. Opposition to entry had hitherto been confined largely to the Labour Party but now, he said, it was clear to him that the sovereignty of Parliament was in question, as was UK's very survival as a nation. This nationalist analysis attracted millions of middle-class Conservatives and others, and as much as anything else it made Powell the implacable enemy of Heath, a fervent pro-European; but there was already enmity between the two.
During 1970, Powell gave speeches about the EEC in Lyons (in French), Frankfurt (in German), Turin (in Italian) and The Hague.
The Conservatives had promised at the 1970 general election in relation to the Common Market. "Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less". When Heath signed an accession treaty before Parliament had even debated the issue, the second reading of the Bill to put the Treaty into law was passed by just eight votes on second reading, and it became clear that the British people would have no further say in the matter, Powell declared his hostility to his party's line. He voted against the government on every one of the 104 divisions in the course of the European Communities Bill. When finally he lost this struggle, after three years of campaigning on the question, he decided he could no longer sit in a parliament that he believed was no longer sovereign.
A ''
Daily Express'' opinion poll in 1972 showed Powell to be the most popular politician in the country.
In mid-1972, he prepared to resign the Conservative whip and changed his mind only because of fears of a renewed wave of immigration from Uganda after the accession of
Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...
, who had expelled Uganda's Asian residents. He decided to remain in parliament and in the Conservative Party, and was expected to support the party in Wolverhampton at the
snap general election of February 1974 called by
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
. However, on 23 February 1974, with the election only five days away, Powell dramatically turned his back on his party, giving as the reasons that it had taken the United Kingdom into the EEC without having a mandate to do so, and that it had abandoned other manifesto commitments, so that he could no longer support it at the election. The monetarist economist
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...
sent Powell a letter praising him as principled.
Powell had arranged for his friend
Andrew Alexander to talk to
Joe Haines, the press secretary of the Labour leader
Harold Wilson, about the timing of Powell's speeches against Heath. Powell had been talking to Wilson irregularly since June 1973 during chance meetings in the gentlemen's lavatories of the "aye" lobby in the House of Commons. Wilson and Haines had ensured that Powell would dominate the newspapers of the Sunday and Monday before election day by having no Labour frontbencher give a major speech on 23 February, the day of Powell's speech. Powell gave this speech at the Mecca Dance Hall in the
Bull Ring, Birmingham, to an audience of 1,500, with some press reports estimating that 7,000 more had to be turned away. Powell said the issue of British membership of the EEC was one where "if there be a conflict between the call of country and that of party, the call of country must come first":
Powell went on to criticise the Conservative government for obtaining British membership despite the party having promised at the general election of 1970 that it would "negotiate: no more, no less" and that "the full-hearted consent of Parliament and people" would be needed if the UK were to join. He also denounced Heath for accusing his political opponents of lacking respect for Parliament while also being "the first Prime Minister in three hundred years who entertained, let alone executed, the intention of depriving Parliament of its sole right to make the laws and impose the taxes of this country".
He then advocated a vote for the Labour Party:
This call to vote Labour surprised some of Powell's supporters who were more concerned with beating socialism than the supposed loss of national independence. On 25 February, he made another speech at
Shipley, again urging a vote for Labour, saying he did not believe the claim that Wilson would renege on his commitment to renegotiation, which Powell believed was ironic because of Heath's premiership: "In acrobatics Harold Wilson, for all his nimbleness and skill, is simply no match for the breathtaking, thoroughgoing efficiency of the present Prime Minister". At this moment a heckler shouted "Judas!" Powell responded: "Judas was paid! Judas was paid! I am making a sacrifice!" Later in the speech Powell said, "I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. It is part of me ... it is something I cannot alter". In 1987, Powell said there was no contradiction between urging people to vote Labour while proclaiming to be a Tory: "Many Labour members are quite good Tories".
Powell, in an interview on 26 February, said he would be voting for
Helene Middleweek, the Labour candidate, rather than the Conservative
Nicholas Budgen
Nicholas William Budgen (3 November 1937 – 26 October 1998), often called Nick Budgen, was a British Conservative Party politician.
Early life and career
Named after St Nicholas Church in Newport, Shropshire of which his grandfather was a p ...
. Powell did not stay up on election night to watch the results on television, and when on 1 March he picked up his copy of ''The Times'' from his letterbox and saw the headline "Mr Heath's general election gamble fails", he reacted by singing the ''
Te Deum
The "Te Deum" (, ; from its incipit, , ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to AD 387 authorship, but with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin Ch ...
''. He later said: "I had had my revenge on the man who had destroyed the self-government of the United Kingdom". The election result was a
hung parliament
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...
. Although the Tories had won the most votes, Labour finished five seats ahead of the Conservatives. The national swing to Labour was 1 per cent; 4 per cent in Powell's heartland, the
West Midlands conurbation
The West Midlands conurbation is the large conurbation that includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the towns of Sutton Coldfield, Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Solihull, Stourbridge and Halesowen in the English West Midland ...
; and 16 per cent in his old constituency (although Budgen won the seat). According to the ''Telegraph'' journalist
Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
, both Powell and Heath believed that Powell had been responsible for the Conservatives' losing the election.
Ulster Unionist
1974–1979
In a sudden
general election in October 1974, Powell returned to Parliament as
Ulster Unionist
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...
MP for
South Down, having rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the far-right
National Front, formed seven years earlier and fiercely opposed to non-white immigration. He repeated his call to vote Labour because of their policy on the EEC.
Since 1968, Powell had been an increasingly frequent visitor to
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, and in keeping with his general British nationalist viewpoint, he sided strongly with the Ulster Unionists in their desire to remain a constituent part of the United Kingdom. From early 1971, he opposed, with increasing vehemence, Heath's approach to Northern Ireland, the greatest breach with his party coming over the imposition of
direct rule Direct rule is when an imperial or central power takes direct control over the legislature, executive and civil administration of an otherwise largely self-governing territory.
Examples Chechnya
In 1991, Chechen separatists declared independence ...
in 1972. He strongly believed that it would survive only if the
Unionists strove to integrate completely with the United Kingdom by abandoning devolved rule in Northern Ireland. He refused to join the
Orange Order, the first Ulster Unionist MP at
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...
never to be a member (and, to date, one of only four, the others being
Ken Maginnis,
Danny Kinahan
Daniel de Burgh Kinahan (born 14 April 1958) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from 2015 to 2017.
Prior to his election as a Member of Parliament, Kinahan was a Member of the ...
and
Sylvia Hermon), and he was an outspoken opponent of the more extremist
loyalism
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British C ...
espoused by
Ian Paisley and his supporters.
In the aftermath of the
Birmingham pub bombings
The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army never officially admitted respo ...
by the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(PIRA) on 21 November 1974, the government passed the
Prevention of Terrorism Act. During its second reading, Powell warned of passing legislation "in haste and under the immediate pressure of indignation on matters which touch the fundamental liberties of the subject; for both haste and anger are ill counsellors, especially when one is legislating for the rights of the subject". He said terrorism was a form of warfare that could not be prevented by laws and punishments but by the aggressor's certainty that the war was impossible to win.
When Heath called a
leadership election
A leadership election is a political contest held in various countries by which the members of a political party determine who will be the leader of their party.
Generally, any political party can determine its own rules governing how and when a l ...
at the end of 1974, Powell claimed they would have to find someone who was not a member of the Cabinet that "without a single resignation or public dissent, not merely swallowed but advocated every single reversal of election pledge or party principle". During February 1975, after winning the leadership election,
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
refused to offer Powell a Shadow Cabinet place because "he turned his back on his own people" by leaving the Conservative Party exactly 12 months earlier and telling the electorate to vote Labour. Powell replied she was correct to exclude him: "In the first place I am not a member of the Conservative Party and secondly, until the Conservative Party has worked its passage a very long way it will not be rejoining me". Powell also attributed Thatcher's success to luck, saying that she was faced with "supremely unattractive opponents at the time".
During the
1975 referendum on British membership of the EEC, Powell campaigned for a 'No' vote. Powell was one of the few prominent supporters of the 'No' camp, with
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
,
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...
,
Peter Shore
Peter David Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney, (20 May 1924 – 24 September 2001) was a British Labour Party politician and former Cabinet Minister, noted in part for his opposition to the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Commun ...
, and
Barbara Castle
Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, (''née'' Betts; 6 October 1910 – 3 May 2002), was a British Labour Party politician who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1979, making her one of the longest-serving female MPs in Bri ...
. The electorate voted 'Yes' by a margin of more than two to one.
On 23 March 1977, in a
vote of confidence
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
against the minority Labour government, Powell, along with a few other Ulster Unionists, abstained. The government won by 322 votes to 298, and remained in power for another two years.
Powell said that the only way to stop the Provisional IRA was for Northern Ireland to be an integral part of the United Kingdom, treated the same as any other of its constituent parts. He said the ambiguous nature of the province's status, with its own
parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
and
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
, gave hope to the PIRA that it could be detached from the rest of the UK:
Nonetheless, in the 1987 general election that he lost, Powell campaigned in Bangor for James Kilfedder, the devolutionist North Down Popular Unionist Party MP and against Robert McCartney, who was standing as a Real Unionist on a policy of integration and equal citizenship for Northern Ireland.
In Powell's later career as an Ulster Unionist MP he continued to criticise the United States and stated that the Americans were trying to persuade the British to surrender Northern Ireland into an all-Irish state because the condition for Irish membership of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, Powell said, was Northern Ireland. The Americans wanted to close the 'yawning gap' in NATO defence that was the southern Irish coast to northern Spain. Powell had a copy of a State Department Policy Statement from 15 August 1950, in which the American government said that the "agitation" caused by partition in Ireland "lessens the usefulness of Ireland in international organisations and complicates strategic planning for Europe". "It is desirable", the document continued, "that Ireland should be integrated into the defence planning of the North Atlantic area, for its strategic position and present lack of defensive capacity are matters of significance."
Though he voted with the Conservatives in a vote of confidence that brought down the Labour government on 28 March, Powell did not welcome the victory of
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
in the
May 1979 election. "Grim" was Powell's response when he was asked what he thought of Thatcher's victory because he believed she would renege like Heath did in 1972. During the election campaign, Thatcher, when questioned, again repeated her vow that there would be no position for Powell in her cabinet if the Conservatives won the forthcoming general election. In the days after the election, Powell wrote to Callaghan to commiserate on his defeat, pay tribute to his reign and to wish him well.
1979–1982
After a
riot in Bristol in 1980, Powell stated that the media were ignoring similar events in south London and Birmingham, and said: "Far less than the foreseeable New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic proportion would be sufficient to constitute a dominant political force in the United Kingdom able to extract from a government and the main parties terms calculated to render its influence still more impregnable. Far less than this proportion would provide the bases and citadels for urban terrorism, which would in turn reinforce the overt political leverage of simple numbers". He criticised "the false nostrums and promises of those who apparently monopolise the channels of communication. Who then is likely to listen, let alone to respond, to the proof that nothing short of major movements of population can shift the lines along which we are being carried towards disaster?"
In the 1980s, Powell began espousing the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. In a debate on the nuclear deterrent on 3 March 1981, Powell claimed that the debate was now more political than military; that the UK did not possess an independent deterrent and that through NATO the UK was tied to the nuclear deterrence theory of the United States. In the debate on the address shortly after the general election of 1983, Powell picked up on Thatcher's willingness, when asked, to use nuclear weapons as a "last resort". Powell presented a scenario of what he thought the last resort would be, namely that the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
would be ready to invade the UK and had used a nuclear weapon on somewhere such as
Rockall
Rockall () is an uninhabitable granite islet situated in the North Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom claims that Rockall lies within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and is part of its territory, but this claim is not recognised by Ireland. ...
to demonstrate their willingness to use it:
Powell went on to say that if the Soviet invasion had already begun and the UK resorted to a retaliatory strike the results would be the same: "We should be condemning, not merely to death, but as near as may be the non-existence of our population". To Powell, an invasion would take place with or without the UK's nuclear weapons and therefore there was no point in retaining them. He said that after years of consideration, he had come to the conclusion that there were no "rational grounds on which the deformation of our defence preparations in the United Kingdom by our determination to maintain a current independent nuclear deterrent can be justified".
On 28 March 1981, Powell gave a speech to
Ashton-under-Lyne
Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. The population was 45,198 at the 2011 census. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the north bank of the River Tame, in the foothills of the Pennines, east of Manche ...
Young Conservatives where he criticised the "conspiracy of silence" between the government and the opposition over the prospective growth through births of the immigration population, and added, We have seen nothing yet' is a phrase that we could with advantage repeat to ourselves whenever we try to form a picture of that future". He also criticised those who believed it was "too late to do anything" and that "there lies the certainty of violence on a scale which can only adequately be described as civil war". He also said that the solution was "a reduction in prospective numbers as would represent re-emigration hardly less massive than the immigration which occurred in the first place". The Shadow Home Secretary, Labour MP
Roy Hattersley
Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for over 32 years from 1964 to 1997, and served as Depu ...
, criticised Powell for using "Munich beer-hall language". On 11 April, there was a
riot in Brixton and when on 13 April an interviewer quoted to Thatcher Powell's remark that "We have seen nothing yet", she replied: "I heard him say that and I thought it was a very very alarming remark. And I hope with all my heart that it isn't true".
In July, a
riot took place in
Toxteth
Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Merseyside.
Toxteth is located to the south of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Aigburth, Canning, Dingle, and Edge Hill.
The area ...
, Liverpool. On 16 July 1981, Powell gave a speech in the Commons in which he said the riots could not be understood unless one takes into consideration the fact that in some large cities between a quarter and a half of those under 25 were immigrant or descended from immigrants. He read out a letter he had received from a member of the public about immigration that included the line: "As they continue to multiply and as we can't retreat further there must be conflict". A Labour MP,
Martin Flannery, intervened, saying Powell was making "a National Front speech". Powell predicted "inner London becoming ungovernable or violence which could only effectively be described as civil war", and Flannery intervened again to ask what Powell knew about
inner cities
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists someti ...
.
Powell replied: "I was a Member for Wolverhampton for a quarter of a century. What I saw in those early years of the development of this problem in Wolverhampton has made it impossible for me ever to dissociate myself from this gigantic and tragic problem". He also criticised the view that the causes of the riots were economic: "Are we seriously saying that so long as there is poverty, unemployment and deprivation our cities will be torn to pieces, that the police in them will be the objects of attack and that we shall destroy our own environment? Of course not". Dame
Judith Hart
Constance Mary Hart, Baroness Hart of South Lanark, (née Ridehalgh; 18 September 19247 December 1991), known as Dame Judith Hart, was a British Labour Party politician. She served as a government minister during the 1960s and 1970s before ...
attacked his speech as "an evil incitement to riot". Powell replied: "I am within the judgment of the House, as I am within the judgment of the people of this country, and I am content to stand before either tribunal".
After the
Scarman Report
The Scarman report was commissioned by the UK Government following the 1981 Brixton riots. Lord Scarman was appointed by then Home Secretary William Whitelaw on 14 April 1981 (two days after the rioting ended) to hold the enquiry into the riots ...
on the riots was published, Powell gave a speech on 10 December in the Commons. Powell disagreed with Scarman, as the report stated that the black community was alienated because it was economically disadvantaged: the black community was alienated because it was alien. He said tensions would worsen because the non-white population was growing: whereas in
Lambeth it was 25 per cent, of those of secondary school age it was 40 per cent. Powell said that the government should be honest to the people by telling them that in thirty years' time, the black population of Lambeth would have doubled in size.
John Casey records an exchange between Powell and Thatcher during a meeting of the
Conservative Philosophy Group:
Falklands conflict
When
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Powell was given secret briefings on Privy Councillor terms on behalf of his party. On 3 April, Powell said in the Commons that the time for inquests on the government's failure to protect the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
would come later and that although it was right to put the issue before the United Nations, the UK should not wait upon that organisation to deliberate but use forceful action now. He then turned to face Thatcher: "The Prime Minister, shortly after she came into office, received a sobriquet as the 'Iron Lady'. It arose in the context of remarks which she made about defence against the Soviet Union and its allies; but there was no reason to suppose that the right hon. Lady did not welcome and, indeed, take pride in that description. In the next week or two this House, the nation and the right hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made". According to Thatcher's friends this had a "devastating impact" on her and encouraged her resolve.
On 14 April, in the Commons, Powell said: "it is difficult to fault the military and especially the naval measures which the Government have taken". He added: "We are in some danger of resting our position too exclusively upon the existence, the nature and the wishes of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands ... if the population of the Falkland Islands did not desire to be British, the principle that the Queen wishes no unwilling subjects would long ago have prevailed; but we should create great difficulties for ourselves in other contexts, as well as in this context, if we rested our action purely and exclusively on the notion of restoring tolerable, acceptable conditions and self-determination to our fellow Britons on the Falkland Islands. ... I do not think that we need be too nice about saying that we defend our territory as well as our people. There is nothing irrational, nothing to be ashamed of, in doing that. Indeed, it is impossible in the last resort to distinguish between the defence of territory and the defence of people".
Powell also criticised the United Nations Security Council's resolution calling for a "peaceful solution". He said while he wanted a peaceful solution, the resolution's meaning "seems to be of a negotiated settlement or compromise between two incompatible positions—between the position which exists in international law, that the Falkland Islands and their dependencies are British sovereign territory and some other position altogether ... It cannot be meant that one country has only to seize the territory of another country for the nations of the world to say that some middle position must be found. ... If that were the meaning of the resolution of the Security Council, the charter of the United Nations would not be a charter of peace; it would be a pirates' charter. It would mean that any claim anywhere in the world had only to be pursued by force, and points would immediately be gained and a bargaining position established by the aggressor".
On 28 April, Powell spoke in the Commons against the Northern Ireland Secretary's (
Jim Prior
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then ...
) plans for devolution to a power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland: "We assured the people of the Falkland Islands that there should be no change in their status without their agreement. Yet at the very same time that those assurances were being repeated, the actions of the Government and their representatives elsewhere were belying or contradicting those assurances and showing that part at any rate of the Government was looking to a very different outcome that could not be approved by the people of the islands. Essentially, exactly the same has happened over the years to Northern Ireland". He further said that power-sharing was a negation of democracy.
The next day Powell disagreed with the Labour Party leader
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
's claim that the British government was acting under the authority of the United Nations: "The right of self-defence—to repel aggression and to expel an invader from one's territory and one's people whom he has occupied and taken captive—is, as the Government have said, an inherent right. It is one which existed before the United Nations was dreamt of".
On 13 May Powell said the task force was sent "to repossess the Falkland Islands, to restore British administration of the islands and to ensure that the decisive factor in the future of the islands should be the wishes of the inhabitants" but the Foreign Secretary (
Francis Pym
Francis Leslie Pym, Baron Pym, (13 February 1922 – 7 March 2008) was a British Conservative Party politician who served in various Cabinet positions in the 1970s and 1980s, including Foreign, Defence and Northern Ireland Secretary, and Leader ...
) desired an "interim agreement": "So far as I understand that interim agreement, it is in breach, if not in contradiction, of each of the three objects with which the task force was dispatched to the South Atlantic. There was to be a complete and supervised withdrawal of Argentine forces ... matched by corresponding withdrawal of British forces. There is no withdrawal of British force that 'corresponds' to the withdrawal from the territory of the islands of those who have unlawfully occupied them. We have a right to be there; those are our waters, the territory is ours and we have the right to sail the oceans with our fleets whenever we think fit. So the whole notion of a 'corresponding withdrawal', a withdrawal of the only force which can possibly restore the position, which can possibly ensure any of the objectives which have been talked about on either side of the House, is in contradiction of the determination to repossess the Falklands".
After British forces successfully recaptured the Falklands, Powell asked Thatcher in the Commons on 17 June, recalling his statement to her of 3 April: "Is the right hon. Lady aware that the report has now been received from the public analyst on a certain substance recently subjected to analysis and that I have obtained a copy of the report? It shows that the substance under test consisted of ferrous matter of the highest quality, that it is of exceptional tensile strength, is highly resistant to wear and tear and to stress, and may be used with advantage for all national purposes?" She replied, "I think that I am very grateful indeed to the right hon. Gentleman. I agree with every word that he said". Their mutual friend
Ian Gow
Ian Reginald Edward Gow (; 11 February 1937 – 30 July 1990) was a British politician and solicitor. As a member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastbourne from 1974 until his assassination by the ...
printed and framed this and the original question and presented it to Thatcher, who hung it in her office.
Powell wrote an article for ''The Times'' on 29 June, in which he said: "The Falklands have brought to the surface of the British mind our latent perception of ourselves as a sea animal. ... No assault on a landward possession would have evoked the same automatic defiance, tinged with a touch of that self sufficiency which belongs to all nations". The United States' response was "very different but just as deep an instinctual reaction ... the United States have an almost neurotic sense of vulnerability ... its two coastlines, its two theatres, its two navies are separated by the entire length of the New World ... she lives with ... the nightmare of having one day to fight a decisive sea battle without the benefit of concentration, the perpetual spectre of naval 'war on two fronts'." Powell added: "The
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a condui ...
from 1914 onwards could never quite exorcise the spectre. ... It was the position of the Falkland Islands in relation to that route which gave and gives them their significance—for the United States above all. The British people have become uneasily aware that their American allies would prefer the Falkland Islands to pass out of Britain's possession into hands which, if not wholly American, might be amenable to American control. In fact, the American struggle to wrest the islands from Britain has only commenced in earnest now that the fighting is over". Powell then said there was "the Hispanic factor": "If we could gather together all the anxieties for the future which in Britain cluster around race relations ... and then attribute them, translated into Hispanic terms, to the Americans, we would have something of the phobias which haunt the United States and addressed itself to the aftermath of the Falklands campaign".
Writing in ''The Guardian'' on 18 October, Powell said that due to the Falklands War, "Britain no longer looked upon itself and the world through American spectacles" and the view was "more rational; and it was more congenial; for, after all, it was our own view". He quoted an observation that Americans thought their country was "a unique society ... where God has put together all nationalities, races and interests of the globe for one purpose—to show the rest of the world how to live". He denounced the "manic exaltation of the American illusion" and compared it to the "American nightmare". Powell also disliked the American belief that "they are authorised, possibly by the deity, to intervene, openly or covertly, in the internal affairs of other countries anywhere in the world". The UK should dissociate herself from American intervention in the Lebanon: "It is not in Britain's self-interest alone that Britain should once again assert her own position. A world in which the American myth and the American nightmare go unchallenged by question or by contradiction is not a world as safe or as peaceable as human reason, prudence and realism can make it".
Speaking to the Aldershot and North Hants Conservative Association on 4 February 1983, Powell blamed the United Nations for the Falklands War by the General Assembly resolution of December 1967 that stated "its gratitude for the continuous efforts made by the Government of Argentina to facilitate the process of decolonisation" and further called on the UK and Argentina to negotiate. Powell said that "it would be difficult to imagine a more cynically wicked or criminally absurd or insultingly provocative action". As 102 had voted for this resolution, with only the UK voting against it (with 32 abstentions), he said it was not surprising that Argentina had continually threatened the UK until this threatening turned into aggression: "It is with the United Nations that the guilt lies for the breach of the peace and the bloodshed". The UN knew that no international forum had ruled against British possession of the Falklands but had voted its gratitude to Argentina who wanted to annexe the Islands from their rightful owners. It was therefore "disgraceful" for the UK to belong to such a body that engaged in "pure spite for spite's sake against the United Kingdom": "We were, and are, the victims of our own insincerity. For over thirty years we have sanctimoniously and dishonestly pretended respect, if not awe, for an organisation which all the time we knew was a monstrous and farcical humbug. ... The moral is to cease to engage in humbug, which almost all have happily and self-righteously engaged in for a generation".
1983 general election
In an article for the ''Sunday Telegraph'' on 3 April, Powell expressed his opposition to the Labour Party's manifesto pledge to outlaw fox hunting. He claimed that angling was much crueller and that it was just as logical to ban the boiling of live lobsters or eating live oysters. The ceremonial part of fox hunting was "a side of our national character which is deeply antipathetic to the Labour party". In the
1983 general election, Powell had to face a DUP candidate in his constituency and Ian Paisley denounced Powell as "a foreigner and an Anglo-Catholic".
On 31 May Powell gave a speech at
Downpatrick
Downpatrick () is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the Lecale peninsula, about south of Belfast. In the Middle Ages, it was the capital of the Dál Fiatach, the main ruling dynasty of Ulaid. Its cathedral is said to be the b ...
against nuclear weapons. Powell said that war could not be banished because "War is implicit in the human condition". The "true case against the nuclear weapon is the nightmarish unreality and criminal levity of the grounds upon which its acquisition and multiplication are advocated and defended". Thatcher had claimed nuclear weapons were our defence "of last resort". Powell said he supposed this to mean "that the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, which seems always to be assumed to be the enemy in question, proved so victorious in a war of aggression in Europe as to stand upon the verge of invading these islands. ... Suppose further, because this is necessary to the alleged case for our nuclear weapon as the defence of last resort, that, as in 1940, the United States was standing aloof from the contest but that, in contrast with 1940, Britain and the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
respectively possessed the nuclear weaponry which they do today. Such must surely be the sort of scene in which the Prime Minister is asserting that Britain would be saved by possession of her present nuclear armament. I can only say: 'One must be mad to think it'." Powell pointed out that the UK's nuclear weaponry "is negligible in comparison with that of Russia: if we could destroy 16 Russian cities she could destroy practically every vestige of life on these islands several times over. For us to use the weapon would therefore be equivalent to more than suicide: it would be genocide—the extinction of our race—in the literal and precise meaning of that much abused expression. Would anybody in their senses contemplate that this ought to be our choice or would be our choice?"
Powell further stated that the continental nations held the nuclear weapon in such esteem that they had conventional forces "manifestly inadequate to impose more than brief delay upon an assault from the East. The theory of nuclear deterrence states that, should Warsaw Pact forces score substantial military successes or make substantial advances this side of the
Iron Curtain, the United States would initiate the suicidal duel of strategic nuclear exchanges with the Soviet Union. One can only greet this idea with an even more emphatic 'One must be mad to think of it'. That a nation staring ultimate military defeat in the face would choose self-extermination is unbelievable enough; but that the United States, separated from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean, would regard the loss of the first pawn in the long game as necessitating
harakiri
, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...
is not describable by the ordinary resources of language". The reason why governments, including in the US, supported nuclear weapons was that "enormous economic and financial interests are vested in the continuation and elaboration of nuclear armaments. I believe, however, that the crucial explanation lies in another direction: the nuclear hypothesis provides governments with an excuse for not doing what they have no intention of doing anyhow, but for reasons which they find it inconvenient to specify".
On 2 June, Powell spoke against the stationing of US cruise missiles in the UK and asserted that the United States had an obsessive sense of mission and a hallucinatory view of international relations: "The American nation, as we have watched their proceedings during these last 25 years, will not, when another Atlantic crisis, another Middle East crisis or another European crisis comes, wait upon the deliberations of the British Cabinet, whose point of view and appreciation of the situation will be so different from their own".
In 1983, his local agent was
Jeffrey Donaldson
Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson (born 7 December 1962) is a Northern Irish politician who has served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since June 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lagan Valley since 1997, and lead ...
, later an Ulster Unionist MP before defecting to the DUP.
1983–1987
In 1984, Powell alleged that the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
had murdered
Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Earl Mountbatten of Burma is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 28 October 1947 for Rear Admiral Louis Mountbatten, 1st Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. The letters patent creating the title specified the following r ...
and that the assassinations of the MPs
Airey Neave and
Robert Bradford were carried out at the direction of elements in the
Government of the United States of America
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
with the strategic objective of preventing Neave's policy of integration of Ulster fully into the United Kingdom. In 1986, Powell stated that the
Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) had not killed Neave but that "
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
and their friends" were responsible: Powell cited as his sources information that had been disclosed to him from within the
Royal Ulster Constabulary. Margaret Thatcher, however, rejected and dismissed these assertions.
In 1985, race riots between the black community and the police broke out in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
, leading Powell to repeat his warning that ethnic civil conflict would be the ultimate outcome of foreign mass migration into the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
, and re-issue his call for a government sponsored programme of repatriation.
Powell later came into conflict with Thatcher in November 1985 over her support for the
Anglo-Irish Agreement
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was a 1985 treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Irela ...
. On the day it was signed, 14 November, Powell asked her in the Commons: "Does the Right Hon. Lady understand — if she does not yet understand she soon will — that the penalty for treachery is to fall into public contempt?", the Prime Minister replying that she found his remarks "deeply offensive".
Along with other Unionist MPs, Powell resigned his seat in protest and then narrowly regained it at the
ensuing by-election.
In 1986 the former Irish schoolteacher
Seamus Mallon
Seamus Frederick Mallon (; 17 August 1936 – 24 January 2020) was an Irish politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 1979 to 20 ...
was a new entrant to the House of Commons. During his maiden speech, Mallon quoted the Dutch philosopher
Baruch Spinoza, saying "Peace is not an absence of war. It is … a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Powell, sitting close to Mallon, hissed an objection. When Mallon enquired why, Powell said that he had misquoted Spinoza. Mallon stated he had not and, to reconcile the standoff between them, they both proceeded to the library to verify the quote. Mallon was found to have been correct.
In 1987, Thatcher visited the Soviet Union, which signified to Powell a "radical transformation which is in progress in both the foreign policy and the defence policy of the United Kingdom". In a speech in the Commons on 7 April, Powell said the nuclear hypothesis had been shaken by two events. The first was the
Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars": "Star wars raised the terrible prospect that there might be an effective means of neutralising the inter-continental ballistic missile, whereby the two great giants who held what had become to be seen as the balance of terror would contract out of the game altogether: the deterrent would be switched off by the invulnerability of the two providers of the mutual terror".
America's "European allies were brought along to acquiesce in the United States engaging in the rational activity of discovering whether there was after all some defence against nuclear attack ... by the apparent assurance obtained from the United States that it was only engaged in experiment and research, and that, if there were any danger of effective protection being devised, of course the United States would not avail itself of that protection without the agreement of its European allies. That was the first recent event which shook to its foundations the nuclear deterrent with which we had lived these last 30 years".
The second event was
Mikhail Gorbachev's offer of both the Soviet Union and the United States agreeing to abolish intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Powell said that Thatcher's "most significant point was when she went on to say that we must aim at a conventional forces balance. So, after all our journeys of the last 30 or 40 years, the disappearance of the intermediate range ballistic missile revived the old question of the supposed conventional imbalance between the Russian alliance and the North Atlantic Alliance".
Powell further said that even if nuclear weapons had not existed, the Russians would still not have invaded Western Europe: "What has prevented that from happening was ... the fact that the Soviet Union knew ... that such an action on its part would have led to a third world war—a long war, bitterly fought, a war which in the end the Soviet Union would have been likely to lose on the same basis and in the same way as the corresponding war was lost by
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
, by the Emperor
Wilhelm
Wilhelm may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm"
* Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname
Other uses
* Mount ...
and by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
. It was that fear, that caution, that understanding, that perception on the part of Russia and its leaders that was the real deterrent against Russia committing the utterly irrational and suicidal act of plunging into a third world war in which the Soviet Union would be likely to find itself confronting a combination of the greatest industrial and economic powers in the world".
Powell said, "In the minds of the Russians the inevitable commitment of the United States in such a war would have come not directly or necessarily from the stationing of American marines in Germany, but, as it came in the previous two struggles, from the ultimate involvement of the United States in any war determining the future of Europe". Thatcher's belief in the nuclear hypothesis "in the context of the use of American bases in Britain to launch an aggressive attack on Libya, that it was 'inconceivable' that we could have refused a demand placed upon this country by the United States. The Prime Minister supplied the reason why: she said it was because we depend for our liberty and freedom upon the United States. Once let the nuclear hypothesis be questioned or destroyed, once allow it to break down, and from that moment the American imperative in this country's policies disappears with it".
At the start of
1987 general election, Powell claimed the Conservatives' prospects did not look good: "I have the feeling of 1945". During the final weekend of the election campaign Powell gave a speech in London reiterating his opposition to the nuclear hypothesis, calling it "barmy", and advocating a vote for the Labour Party, which had unilateral nuclear disarmament as a policy. He claimed that
Chernobyl
Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...
had strengthened "a growing impulse to escape from the nightmare of peace being dependent upon the contemplation of horrific and mutual carnage. Events have now so developed that this aspiration can at last be rationally, logically and—I dare to add—patriotically seized by the people of the United Kingdom if they will use their votes to do so".
However, Powell lost his seat in the election by 731 votes to the
Social Democratic and Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...
's
Eddie McGrady
Edward Kevin McGrady (3 June 1935 – 11 November 2013) was an Irish nationalist politician of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Down from 1987 to 2010.
McGrady was also a Member ...
, mainly because of demographic and boundary changes that resulted in there being many more Irish Nationalists in the constituency than before. The boundary changes had arisen due to his own campaign for the number of MPs representing Northern Ireland to be increased to the equivalent proportion for the rest of the United Kingdom, as part of the steps towards greater integration. McGrady paid tribute to Powell, recognising the respect he was held by both Unionists and Nationalists in the constituency. Powell said, "For the rest of my life when I look back on the 13 years I shall be filled with affection for the Province and its people, and their fortunes will never be out of my heart". He received a warm ovation from the mostly Nationalist audience and as he walked off the platform, he said the words
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
used on the death of candidate Richard Coombe: "What shadows we are, what shadows we pursue". When a BBC reporter asked Powell to explain his defeat, he replied: "My opponent polled more votes than me".
He was offered a
life peerage
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages A ...
, which was regarded as his right as a former cabinet minister, but declined it. He argued that as he had opposed the
Life Peerages Act 1958
The Life Peerages Act 1958 established the modern standards for the creation of life peers by the Sovereign of the United Kingdom.
Background
This Act was made during the Conservative governments of 1957–1964, when Harold Macmillan was Prime M ...
, it would be hypocritical for him to take one, but even if he was willing to accept a
hereditary peerage
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of September 2022, there are 807 hereditary peers: 29 dukes (including five royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 190 earls, 111 viscounts, and 443 barons (disregarding subsidi ...
(which would have been extinct upon his death as he had no male heir), Thatcher was unwilling to court the controversy that might have arisen as a result.
Post-parliamentary life
1987–1992
![After Dark 3 July 1987](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/After_Dark_3_July_1987.JPG)
Powell was critical of the
Special Air Service (SAS)
shootings
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, Bow and arrow, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or Blowgun, blowpipe). Even the acts of launching Flamethrower, flame, artillery, Dart (missile), darts, ha ...
of three unarmed IRA members in
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
in March 1988. Powell claimed in an article for ''The Guardian'' on 7 December 1988 that the new Western-friendly foreign policy of Russia under
Mikhail Gorbachev heralded "the death and burial of the American empire". Chancellor
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
of
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
had decided to visit Moscow to negotiate
German reunification, signalling to Powell that the last gasp of American power in Europe to be replaced by a new balance of power not resting on military force but on the "recognition of the restraints which the ultimate certainty of failure places upon the ambitions of the respective national states".
In an interview for the ''Sunday People'' in December 1988, Powell said the Conservative Party was "rejoining Enoch" on the
European Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
but repeated his warning of civil war as the consequence of immigration: "I still cannot forsee how a country can be peaceably governed in which the composition of the population is progressively going to change. I am talking about violence on a scale which can only be described as civil war. I cannot see there can be any other outcome". It would not be a race war but "about people who revolt against being trapped in a situation where they feel at the mercy of a built-in racial majority, whatever its colour" and claimed that the government had made contingency plans for such an event. The solution, he said, was repatriation on a large scale and the cost of doing this in welfare payments and pensions was well worth paying.
In early 1989, he made a programme (broadcast in July) on his visit to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
and his impressions on that country. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in London refused him a visa. When he visited Russia, Powell went to the graves of 600,000 people who died during the
and saying that he could not believe a people who had suffered so much would willingly start another war. He also went to a veterans' parade (wearing his own medals) and talked with Russian soldiers with the aid of an interpreter. However, the programme was criticised by those who believed that Powell had dismissed the Soviet Union's threat to the West since 1945 and that he had been too impressed with Russia's sense of national identity. When
was on the agenda in mid-1989, Powell said that the UK urgently needed to create an alliance with the Soviet Union in view of Germany's effect on the balance of power in Europe.
After Thatcher's
in September 1988 and her increasing hostility to a European currency in the last years of her premiership, Powell made many speeches publicly supporting her attitude to Europe. When Heath criticised Thatcher's speech in May 1989 Powell called him "the old virtuoso of the U-turn". When inflation crept up that year, he condemned the Chancellor
.
In early September 1989, a collection of Powell's speeches on Europe was published titled ''Enoch Powell on 1992'' (1992 being the year set for the creation of the Single Market by the
of 1986). In a speech at
for the launch of the book on 6 September, he advised Thatcher to fight the next general election on a nationalist theme as many Eastern European nations previously under Russian rule were gaining their freedom. At the Conservative Party conference in October, he told a fringe meeting, "I find myself today less on the fringe of that party than I have done for 20 years". After Thatcher resisted further European integration at a meeting at Strasbourg in November Powell asked her parliamentary private secretary
to pass to her "my respectful congratulations on her stand ... she both spoke for Britain and gave a lead to Europe—in the line of succession of
. Those who lead are always out in front, alone". Thatcher replied, "I am deeply touched by your words. They give me the greatest possible encouragement".
On 5 January 1990, addressing Conservatives in Liverpool, Powell said that if the Conservatives played the "British card" at the next general election, they could win; the new mood in the UK for "self-determination" had given the newly independent nations of Eastern Europe a "beacon", adding that the UK should stand alone, if necessary, for European freedom, adding: "We are taunted—by the French, by the Italians, by the Spaniards—for refusing to worship at the shrine of a common government superimposed upon them all ... where were the European unity merchants in 1940? I will tell you. They were either writhing under a hideous oppression or they were aiding and abetting that oppression. Lucky for Europe that Britain was alone in 1940".
The Conservative Party would have to ask, preferably at the next election: "Do you intend still to control the laws which you obey, the taxes you pay and the policies of your government?" Five days after this speech, in an interview for ''The Daily Telegraph'', Thatcher praised Powell: "I have always read Enoch Powell's speeches and articles very carefully. ... I always think it was a tragedy that he left. He is a very, very able politician. I say that even though he has sometimes said vitriolic things against me". On the day of the
was "a disaster" and that what mattered most to the people of Mid-Staffordshire was the question of who should govern the UK and that only the Conservative Party was advocating that the British should govern themselves. Thatcher had been labelled "dictatorial" for wanting to "go it alone" in Europe: "Well, I do not mind somebody being dictatorial in defending my own rights and those of my fellow countrymen ... lose self-government, and I have lost everything, and for good". This was the first election since 1970 in which Powell was advocating a vote for the Conservative Party.
After
in the Middle East had ceased to be a British concern after the end of the British Empire, the UK should not go to war. Powell said that "
". On 21 October, he wrote, "The world is full of evil men engaged in doing evil things. That does not make us policemen to round them up nor judges to find them guilty and to sentence them. What is so special about the ruler of Iraq that we suddenly discover that we are to be his jailers and his judges? ... we as a nation have no interest in the existence or non-existence of Kuwait or, for that matter, Saudi Arabia as an independent state. I sometimes wonder if, when we shed our power, we omitted to shed our arrogance".
When Thatcher was challenged by
during November 1990, Powell said he would rejoin the party, which he had left in February 1974 over the issue of Europe, if Thatcher won, and would urge the public to support both her and, in Powell's view, national independence. He wrote to one of Thatcher's supporters,
, on 16 November, telling him Thatcher was entitled to use his name and his support in any way she saw fit. Since she resigned on 22 November, Powell never rejoined the Conservatives. Powell wrote the following Sunday: "Good news is seldom so good, nor bad news so bad, as at first sight it appears".
Her downfall was due to having so few like-minded people on European integration amongst her colleagues and that as she had adopted a line that would improve her party's popularity, it was foolish of them to force her out. However he added, "The battle has been lost, but not the war. The fact abides that, outside the magic circle at the top, a deep rooted opposition has been disclosed in the UK to surrendering to others the right to make our laws, fix our taxes, or decide our policies. Running deep beneath the overlay of years of indifference is still the attachment of the British public to their tradition of democracy. Their resentment on learning that their own decisions can be overruled from outside remains as obstinate as ever". Thatcher had relit the flame of independence and "what has happened once can happen again ... sooner or later those who aspire to govern ... will have to listen".
In December 1991, Powell said that "Whether
dissolves into two states or half a dozen states or does not dissolve at all makes no difference to the safety and well being of the United Kingdom". The UK's national interests determined that the country should have "a foreign policy which befits the sole insular and oceanic state in Europe". During the
. He praised Budgen for his opposition to the
and condemned the rest of the Conservative Party for supporting it.
. In 1994, he published ''The Evolution of the Gospel: A New Translation of the First Gospel with Commentary and Introductory Essay''. On 5 November, the ''European'' printed an article by Powell in which he said he did not expect the
to be amended or repealed but added, "Still, something has happened. There has been an explosion. Politicians, political parties, the public itself have looked into the abyss ... the British people, somehow or other, will not be parted from their right to govern themselves in parliament".
In 1993, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, Powell wrote an article for ''The Times'', in which he claimed the concentration of immigrant communities in inner cities would lead to "
", which would have grave effects on the electoral system: "communalism and democracy, as the experience of India demonstrates, are incompatible". In May, he spoke for
. Sked went on to lose his deposit at the by-election, polling only 601 votes (1.0 per cent). At
's 40th birthday party the same month, Thatcher greeted him enthusiastically and asked him: "Enoch, I haven't seen you since your eightieth-birthday dinner. How are you?" Powell replied, "I'm eighty-one". Powell's opinion of Thatcher had declined after she endorsed
at the 1992 general election, which he believed to be a repudiation of her fight against
and said Europe had "destroyed one Prime Minister and will destroy another Prime Minister yet" and demanded powers surrendered to the
to be repatriated. In June 1994, he wrote an article for the ''Daily Mail'', where he stated that "Britain is waking from the nightmare of being part of the continental bloc, to rediscover that these offshore islands belong to the outside world and lie open to its oceans". Innovations in contemporary society did not worry him: "When exploration has run its course, we shall revert to the normal type of living to which nature and instinct predispose us. The decline will not have been permanent. The deterioration will not have been irreversible".
In his book ''The Evolution of the Gospel'', published in August 1994, Powell said he had arrived at the view that Jesus Christ was not crucified but stoned to death by the Jews. Bishop
commented "He is a great classicist, but theology is out of his academic field."
Following his death, Powell's friend Richard Ritchie recorded in 1998 that "during one of the habitual coal crises of recent years he told me that he had no objection to supporting the coal industry, either through the restriction of cheap coal imports or subsidy, if it were the country's wish to preserve local coal communities".
In the 1990s, Powell endorsed three UKIP candidates in parliamentary elections. He also turned down two invitations to stand for the party in elections, citing retirement.
In April 1995, he said in an interview that for the Conservatives "defeat
would help. It helps one to change one's tune". The party was just "slithering around". The same month, he took part at a debate on Europe at the
, in which Major resigned as leader of the party and stood in the election. Powell wrote, "He says to the Sovereign: I no longer am leader of the majority party in the House of Commons; but I am carrying on as your Prime Minister. Now I don't think anybody can say that—at least without inflicting damage on the constitution". To seek to offer advice to the Queen while unable to feel they could command a majority in the Commons was "tantamount to treating the monarch herself with disrespect and denying the very principle in which our parliamentary democracy is founded". After Major's challenger,
, was defeated, Powell wrote to him, "Dear Redwood, you will never regret the events of the last week or two. Patience will evidently have to be exercised—and patience is the greatest of the political virtues—by those of us who want to keep Britain independent and self-governed".
During the final years of his life, he managed occasional pieces of journalism and co-operated in a
...