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alternatehistory.com
Enoch Powell was one of the most famous, or infamous, British politicians of the twentieth century. Today he is remembered almost exclusively for his 1968 Rivers of Blood speech – a prescient foreboding or a racist polemic according to his supporters and detractors respectively – after which Powell became inescapably linked to the issue of immigration. In the five decades since 1968, few politicians have equalled Powell’s public profile, fewer still have attracted the same levels of support and opposition. Yet in reality Powell’s character and his politics were far more complex than his popular caricature could possibly allow.
A classical scholar, an economic proto-Thatcherite, an advocate of parliamentary tradition, a romantic defender of institutions, a sceptic of both the EEC and NATO; Powell was often the political outsider, challenging the consensus of the post-war period. While some of his ideas – most prominently his monetarist economics – afterwards became mainstream, others such as his racial views conspicuously did not.
Powell’s ultimate historical break from the political mainstream was driven by a stubborn pursuit of unsullied principle, yet also by a strong personal distaste for Edward Heath and the Conservative Party leadership. Once spoken of as a future Conservative leader, Powell’s political career effectively ended with his defection to the Ulster Unionists in 1974. Although his approval rate among the general electorate remained high throughout the 1970s, Powell would never come close to the top job, that of Prime Minister.