Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell MP's famous 'Rivers of Blood' speech. I have heard about it over the years but had never read the speech itself. Thanks to
Cranmer, I now had the opportunity to do so. Printing the speech off, I read it on the way to Hampshire today.
The speech is quite short. Powell begins by asserting the necessity of discussing future troubles as well as present ones. He then describes a conversation that he had recently had with a constituent who told him that if he could leave the country, he would have. The reason being that 'in 15 or 20 years' time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.'
Powell knows that he will be criticised for publicising what this opinion, but says he has no right to say nothing when what that constituent says is believed by so many other people. He then gives some figures: in 15 - 20 years (i.e. the early 80s) there will be 'three and a half million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants' He states that by the year 2000 there will probably be five to seven million of the same. And they won't be spread out over the country but occupiers of 'whole areas'.
This great rise, Powell says, demands action: stopping the inflow of immigrants and increasing the outflow of them ('re-emigration', he calls it). He adds that both of these are Conservative Party policies.
Powell goes on. 'Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad' and the U.K. must be mad to allow so many immigrants into the country. In respect of re-emigration, Powell states that 'from time to time' constituents ask him for his help in leaving Britain.
He then outlines the third element to the Conservative Party's policy re: immigrants. Namely, that all in this country are equal before the law. For this reason, he opposes anti-discrimination laws - the reason why Powell made his speech, for such laws were at that moment going through Parliament.
For Powell, there was no need for anti-discrimination laws. They were simply discriminatory, just against natives instead of immigrants. Guessing his opponents' arguments, Powell says that there is no comparison between blacks in Britain and those in America. The latter were not yet totally free, but the former came to this country a free and full citizen.
Powell recognises that immigrants to this country face 'drawbacks', but they do not arise from the law but 'personal circumstances'. Meanwhile, the native population is being marginalised. Unable to obtain a hospital bed or a school place. Powell then cites the example of a lady living in Wolverhampton whose husband and sons died in the war and who earned money by letting her house. Immigrants took over her street. Some were rude to her, then all when she refused to let her home to them.
Powell recognises that some immigrants do integrate into British society, but not the majority. Originally, it is because their 'circumstance and background' rendered integration impossible, now, it is because anti-discrimination laws render it unnecessary. In support of this, he cites a Labour Party MP, John Stonehouse, who criticised a Sikh community for campaigning to 'maintain customs inappropriate in Britain'. Looking into the future, Powell adding 'I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."
In concluding, Powell says that the violence in America will soon come to Britain 'by our own volition and our own neglect... it will be of American proportions before the end of the century'.
So, what is one to make of what Enoch Powell's speech? Firstly, the riots of the early 80s notwithstanding, we may be glad that his Cassandrine prophecy has not come to pass.
Secondly, the fact that I have not studied race relations leading up to 1968 make this a very difficult speech to interpret. With the benefit of hindsight, I could call Powell a fool. There have been no rivers of blood; Britishness (whatever that is, anyway), has been preserved. But to call him a fool would be to advertise myself as one because in order to understand Powell's words, I need to understand where he came from; what inspired them. Given the concerns of his constituents and the rioting in America it is perhaps no surprise that he spoke so aggressively about the matter.
Thirdly, the above notwithstanding, it still seems slightly amazing that Powell viewed the situation so negatively. Did he really imagine that black people would one day oppress whites? Or that the majority would use anti-discrimination laws so negatively? It seems hardly believable.
Fourthly, as he has too little faith in what black people might do now here, it seems to me that Powell has too much faith in white people to do the right thing for, unless I have read it wrongly, he believes that the native citizen should be allowed to 'discriminate in the management of his own affairs'. But he cannot have been happy with the way black people were treated by some whites and surely he cannot have denied that some legislation was required to deal with the problem.
Enoch Powell was certainly right when he said that 'whole areas' would be occupied by immigrants. He was also right to be wary of anti-discrimination legislation. Though in the beginning it may have been worthwhile, it also gave rise to the insidious idea of 'positive discrimination'. Finally, he was right to raise the issue of immigration. No society is strong or self confident enough to survive too big an influx. If only it were possible, there would never be a stranger whose case we needed to take, but it isn't and it is right that the politicians say so. But if only Powell had measured his arguments and his words, perhaps he could have contributed to the debate a lot more positively than ultimately he did.
I recently finished reading Alan Clark's biography of the Conservative Party - 
