View source for Enoch Powell

{{Short description|British politician (1912–1998)}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
{{multiple issues|collapsed=yes|
{{very long|date=January 2025|words=18,000}}
{{POV|date=December 2024}}
{{more citations needed|date=December 2024}}
{{missing information|'''the legacy of Enoch Powell in modern Britain'''|date=December 2024}}
}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix    = [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]] [[The Right Honourable]]
| name                = Enoch Powell
| honorific_suffix    = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100|MBE}}
| image               = Enoch Powell 6 Allan Warren.jpg
| caption             = Portrait by [[Allan Warren]], 1987
| office1             = [[Shadow Secretary of State for Defence]]
| leader1             = [[Edward Heath]]
| term_start1         = 7 July 1965
| term_end1           = 21 April 1968
| predecessor1        = [[Peter Thorneycroft]]
| successor1          = [[Reginald Maudling]]
| office2             = [[Secretary of State for Health and Social Care|Minister of Health]]
| prime_minister2     = [[Harold Macmillan]]
| term_start2         = 27 July 1960
| term_end2           = 18 October 1963
| predecessor2        = [[Derek Walker-Smith]]
| successor2          = [[Anthony Barber]]
| office3             = [[Financial Secretary to the Treasury]]
| prime_minister3     = Harold Macmillan
| term_start3         = 14 January 1957
| term_end3           = 15 January 1958
| predecessor3        = [[Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor|Henry Brooke]]
| successor3          = [[Jack Simon, Baron Simon of Glaisdale|Jack Simon]]
{{Collapsed infobox section begin|last = yes|Parliamentary offices
| titlestyle       = border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder
| embed            = yes
| office4             = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]]<br />for [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]]
| term_start4         = 10 October 1974
| term_end4           = 18 May 1987
| predecessor4        = [[Lawrence Orr]]
| successor4          = [[Eddie McGrady]]
| office5             = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]]<br />for [[Wolverhampton South West]]
| term_start5         = 23 February 1950
| term_end5           = 8 February 1974
| predecessor5        = [[Boundary commissions (United Kingdom)|Constituency established]]
| successor5          = [[Nicholas Budgen]]
{{collapsed infobox section end}}}}
| birth_name          = John Enoch Powell
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1912|6|16|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Birmingham]], England
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1998|2|8|1912|6|16|df=y}}
| resting_place       = Warwick Cemetery, [[Warwick]], England
| death_place         = London, England
| party               = {{plainlist|
* [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] (1947–1974)
* [[Ulster Unionist]] (1974–1987)}}
| spouse              = {{marriage|Pamela Wilson|2 January 1952}}
| children            = 2
| education           = {{ubl|[[Trinity College, Cambridge]]|[[School of Oriental Studies]]}}
| signature           = Enoch Powell sig 1985.jpg
| branch              = {{army|United Kingdom}}
| branch_label        = Branch
| unit                = {{plainlist|
* {{nobr|[[Royal Warwickshire Regiment]]}}
* [[General Service Corps]]
* [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]]}}
| service_years       = 1939–1945
| service_years_label = Service&nbsp;years
| rank                = [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]]
| battles             = {{tree list}}
* [[Second World War]]
** [[North African campaign]]
** [[India in World War II|British India]]
{{tree list end}}
| battles_label       = Conflicts
| mawards             = [[Member of the Order of the British Empire]] (1943)
}}

'''John Enoch Powell''' (16 June 1912{{snd}}8 February 1998) was a British politician, soldier, scholar and writer. He was [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Wolverhampton South West]] for the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] from 1950 to [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974]] and the MP for [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] for the [[Ulster Unionist Party]] (UUP) from [[October 1974 United Kingdom general election|October 1974]] to 1987. He was [[Secretary of State for Health and Social Care|Minister of Health]] from 1960 to 1963 in the [[second Macmillan ministry]] and was [[Shadow Secretary of State for Defence]] from 1965 to 1968 in the [[Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)|Shadow Cabinet]] of [[Edward Heath]].

Before entering politics, Powell was a [[Classics|classical]] scholar; in 1937 he was appointed Professor of Greek at the [[University of Sydney]], aged 25. He served in the [[British Army]] during the [[World War II|Second World War]], reaching the rank of brigadier. He wrote both poetry and books on classical and political subjects. He is remembered particularly for [[Powellism|his views]] on immigration and [[demographic change]]. In 1968 Powell attracted attention nationwide for his [[Rivers of Blood speech|"Rivers of Blood" speech]], in which he criticised immigration to Britain, especially [[Modern immigration to the United Kingdom|the rapid influx]] from the [[Commonwealth of Nations]] (former colonies of the [[British Empire]]) in the [[post-war era]]. He opposed the [[Race Relations Act 1968|Race Relations Bill]], a major [[Anti-discrimination law|anti-discrimination bill]] proposed by the Labour government of [[Harold Wilson]], which ultimately became law. His speech was criticised by some of his own party members and ''[[The Times]]'' as racialist.<ref>Editorial comment, ''[[The Times]]'', 22 April 1968.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=461}}</ref> Heath, who was then the [[Leader of the Conservative Party (UK)|leader of the Conservative Party]] and the [[Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)|leader of the Opposition]], dismissed Powell from the Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech. In the aftermath several polls suggested that between 67 and 82 per cent of the British population agreed with Powell.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=352}}<ref>{{Citation | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zOxwMFUnH8YC&pg=PA48 | title = The White Man's World | first = Bill | last = Schwarz| year = 2011 | page = 48 | publisher = OUP Oxford | isbn = 9780199296910 | quote = So far as these can tell us anything, the opinion polls following the speech provide an indication of the scale of popular support. Gallup recorded 74 per cent, ORC 82 per cent, NOP 67 per cent and the ''Express'' 79 per cent in favour of what Powell had proposed in Birmingham.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Bruce |last=Garvey |work=[[Ottawa Citizen]] |url=http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=ac315342-4333-4bcf-8916-fe85d7d21746 |title=Part 2: Enoch Powell and the 'Rivers of Blood' speech|publisher=Canada.com |date=4 June 2008 |access-date=20 February 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511101758/http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=ac315342-4333-4bcf-8916-fe85d7d21746 |archive-date=11 May 2011 }}</ref><ref name="dumbrell">{{Citation | title = A Special Relationship | first = John | last = Dumbrell | year = 2001 | pages = 34–35 | publisher = Macmillan | isbn = 9780333622490 | quote = A Feb 1969 Gallup poll showed Powell the 'most admired person' in British public opinion}}</ref><ref name="alor">{{citation|url=http://www.alor.org/Volume8/Vol8No47.htm |title=OnTarget |volume=8 |number=47 |publisher=ALOR |access-date=2 January 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110219220845/http://www.alor.org/Volume8/Vol8No47.htm |archive-date=19 February 2011 }}</ref>

Powell turned his back on the Conservatives and endorsed a vote for the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], which returned as a [[minority government]] at the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974 general election]].{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}}{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=710–712}} Powell was returned to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] in October 1974 as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for the constituency of [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] in [[Northern Ireland]]. He represented it until he was defeated at the [[1987 United Kingdom general election|1987 general election]]. Powell died in 1998 aged 85 and remains a divisive and controversial figure in Britain.

== Early years ==
John Enoch Powell was born on 16 June 1912 in [[Stechford]], within the city of [[Birmingham]], and was baptised at [[St Nicholas Church, Newport|St Nicholas's Church]] in [[Newport, Shropshire]], where his parents had married in 1909.<ref>{{cite news|title=Controversial MP's family links and childhood memories of the [Shropshire] county|work=[[Shropshire Star]]|date=15 April 2021|page=16|author-first1=Toby|author-last1=Neal}}</ref> He was the only child of Albert Enoch Powell, a primary school headmaster, and his wife Ellen Mary Powell (who was the daughter of Henry Breese, a [[Liverpool]] 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".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=5}} At the age of three, Powell was nicknamed "the Professor" because he used to stand on a chair and describe the stuffed birds that his grandfather had shot, which were displayed in his parents' home.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=3}} In 1918 the family moved to [[Kings Norton]], where Powell remained until he went up to the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1930.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Enoch Powell-more |url=https://www.militaryintelligencemuseum.org/enoch-powell-more |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=Mil Intel Museum |language=en}}</ref>

The Powells were of [[Welsh people|Welsh]] descent and from [[Radnorshire]] (a Welsh border county), having moved to the developing [[Black Country]] during the early 19th century. Enoch's great-grandfather was a coal-miner and his grandfather had been in the iron trade.{{sfn|Roth|1970}}{{page needed|date=March 2026}}

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.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=6–7}} By the age of six, Powell loved to read.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=5}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=3}} Every Sunday he would give lectures to his parents on the books that he had read and also conducted [[evensong]] and preached a sermon.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=5–6}} Once he was old enough to go out on his own, Powell would walk around rural [[Worcestershire]] with the aid of [[Ordnance Survey]] maps, which instilled in him a love for landscape and cartography.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=6}}

==Education==
Powell attended a [[dame school]] until he was eleven. He was then a pupil for three years at [[King's Norton Boys' School|King's Norton Grammar School for Boys]] before he won a scholarship to [[King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School]] in Birmingham in 1925, aged 13.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=6}} The legacy of the [[First World War]] loomed large for Powell; almost all his teachers had fought in the war. He formed the view that Britain and Germany would fight again.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=6–7, 10}}

Powell's mother began teaching him Greek in the two weeks of Christmas break in 1925. By the time he started the next term, he had attained a level in Greek that most pupils would reach after two years. Within two terms, Powell was top of the classics form.<ref group="nb">His classmate, [[Christopher Evans (theologian)|Christopher Evans]], recalled that Powell was "austere" and "really unlike any schoolboy one had known ... He was quite a phenomenon".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=7}}<ref group="nb">Another contemporary, [[Denis Hills]], later said that Powell "carried an armful of books and kept to himself ... he was reputed to be cleverer than any of the masters".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=8}}

Precociously, Powell won all three of the school's classics prizes<ref group="nb">[[Thucydides]], [[Herodotus]] and [[Divinity (academic discipline)|Divinity]]</ref> and would win more later in his school career. In the fifth form he began to translate [[Herodotus]]'s ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]''. He entered the sixth form two years before his classmates and was remembered as a hard-working student.<ref group="nb">Powell's contemporary, [[Roy Lewis (writer)|Roy Lewis]], recalled that "we thought that the masters were afraid of him".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=8}} Powell also won a medal in gymnastics and gained a proficiency in the clarinet. He contemplated studying at the [[Royal Academy of Music]], but his parents persuaded him to try for a scholarship at Cambridge.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=9}}<ref group="nb">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".</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=11}}

It was during his time in the sixth form that Powell learned German. He was influenced by reading [[James George Frazer]]'s ''[[The Golden Bough]]'' and [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s ''[[Sartor Resartus]]'', which led him towards the works of [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=10–12}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=9}}<ref group="nb">In 1929, he was awarded the Higher School Certificate with a distinction in [[Latin]], Greek and ancient history, and won the school's Lee Divinity Prize for an essay on the [[New Testament]] after having memorised [[St Paul]]'s [[Epistle to the Galatians]] in Greek.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}}<ref group="nb">Powell also won the Badger Prize for English Literature twice and the Lightfoot Thucydides Prize.</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=15}}

Aged 17 Powell sat the classics scholarship paper at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], and won the top award.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}}<ref group="nb">[[Ronald Melville (civil servant)|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's style of Greek and then in the style of Herodotus.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=12–13}}<ref group="nb">For another paper, Powell also had to translate a passage from [[Bede]], which he did into [[Plato]]nic Greek. In the remaining time, Powell later remembered, "I tore it up and translated it again into Herodotean Greek – [[Ionic Greek]] – (which I had never written before) and then, still having time to spare, I proceeded to annotate it".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=13}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=16}} 
Powell studied at Trinity from 1930 to 1933. He became almost a [[recluse]] and devoted his time to studying.<ref group="nb">On days without lectures or supervisions, he would read from 5:30 am to 9:30 pm at night.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=14}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=18}} The British literary magazine ''[[Granta]]'' called him "The [[Hermit]] of Trinity".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=19}}<ref group="nb">Powell 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".</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=17}} At the age of 18 his first paper to a classical journal was published (in German) in the ''[[w:de:Philologische Wochenschrift|Philologische Wochenschrift]]'', on a line of Herodotus.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=15}} 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 began referring to himself as "Enoch Powell".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=16}}{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}} Powell won the [[John Craven, 1st Baron Craven of Ryton#Craven scholarships|Craven scholarship]] at the beginning of his second term in 1931.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=19}} It was at Cambridge that Powell fell under the influence of the poet [[A. E. Housman]], then Professor of [[Latin]] at the university.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=19–20}}

At Cambridge, Powell won a number of prizes, including the Percy Pemberton Prize, the [[Porson Prize]], the Yeats Prize and the Lees Knowles, the Members' prize for Latin prose, the [[Browne Medal]], the First Chancellor's Classical Medal and the Cromer Greek essay prize of the [[British Academy]].<ref group="nb">having written on "Thucydides, his moral and historical principles and their influence in later antiquities"</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=26}}<ref group="nb">The Chancellor of Cambridge University, the Conservative Party leader [[Stanley Baldwin]], told the Master of Trinity [[J. J. Thomson]]: "Powell reads as if he understands". He graduated with [[First Class Honours|first class]] with distinction</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=27}}<ref group="nb">Shortly before his finals in May 1933, Powell became ill with [[tonsillitis]] and then suffered [[pyelitis]]. His neighbour in [[Trinity Great Court]], [[Frederick Simpson (historian)|Frederick Simpson]], arranged that the [[Tripos]] examination papers be sent to the nursing home where he was convalescing. Despite having a temperature of 104 degrees (40 °C) when he sat the last of the seven papers, Powell gained a [[First Class Honours|first class]] with distinction.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=21}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=27}}

Powell took a course in [[Urdu]] at the School of Oriental Studies (now [[SOAS, University of London]]), because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming [[Viceroy of India]] would be unattainable without knowledge of an [[Languages of India|Indian language]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} Later, during his political career, he would speak to his Indian-born constituents in Urdu.<ref>[[Vernon Bogdanor]], '[https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lecture/transcript/print/enoch-powell-and-the-sovereignty-of-parliament/ Enoch Powell and the Sovereignty of Parliament]'. gresham.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2019.</ref> Powell went on to learn other languages, such as [[Welsh language|Welsh]], [[modern Greek]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]].

== Academic career ==
After graduating from Cambridge, Powell stayed on at Trinity College as a [[fellow]], spending much of his time studying ancient manuscripts in Latin and producing academic works in Greek and Welsh.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=18–20}}<ref>{{Citation | contribution = Enoch Powell | volume = 3 | title = The Dictionary of British Classicists | year = 2004}}</ref> He won the Craven travelling scholarship, which he used to fund travels to Italy, where he researched Greek manuscripts. He also learned Italian.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=21}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=27}} Powell was still convinced of the inevitability of war with Germany after [[Adolf Hitler]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=22}} He suffered a spiritual crisis when he heard of the [[Night of the Long Knives]] in July 1934, which shattered his vision of German culture.<ref group="nb">Powell 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".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=24}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=28}}

Powell spent his time at Trinity teaching and supervising undergraduates and worked on a lexicon of Herodotus.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=25}} Since 1932, Powell had been working on the Egyptian manuscripts of [[J. Rendel Harris]] and his translation from Greek into English was published in 1937.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=20}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=31}}

Powell published the collection ''First Poems'' in 1937, which was influenced by Housman.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=30}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=23}}<ref group="nb">''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' noted they possessed to a degree "the tone and temper" of Housman's ''[[A Shropshire Lad]]''. The [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]] [[John Masefield]] told Powell he read them "with a great deal of admiration for their concision and point", while [[Hilaire Belloc]] said: "I have read them with the greatest pleasure and interest ... I shall always retain them".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=33}} His second volume of poems, ''Casting Off, and Other Poems'', was printed in 1939.<ref group="nb">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".</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=24}}<ref group="nb">[[Maurice Cowling]] 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".</ref><ref>Maurice Cowling, ''Religion and Public Doctrine in England'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 432–433.</ref> A further collection of poems, ''Dancer's End'' and ''The Wedding Gift'', were published in 1951. A full collection of poems was published in one volume in 1990.<ref group="nb">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".</ref><ref>Enoch Powell, 'Foreword', ''Collected Poems'' (London: Bellew Publishing, 1990), p. vii.</ref>

In 1937 he was appointed Professor of Greek at the [[University of Sydney]], 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]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=35}}<ref>[[Shane Maloney]] and Chris Grosz, [https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2012/april/1333497085/shane-maloney/gough-whitlam-enoch-powell#mtr200 "Gough Whitlam & Enoch Powell"], ''[[The Monthly]]'', April 2012. Retrieved 29 June 2023.</ref> He revised [[Henry Stuart Jones]]'s edition of [[Thucydides]]' ''[[History of the Peloponnesian War|Historiae]]'' for the [[Oxford University Press]] in 1938. His most lasting contribution to classical scholarship was his ''Lexicon to Herodotus'', published by [[Cambridge University Press]] the same year, which was well received by critics.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=42}}

Soon after his arrival in Australia, he was appointed Curator of the [[Nicholson Museum]] at the University of Sydney. He informed the vice-chancellor that war would soon begin in Europe and that when it did, he would be heading home to enlist in the army.{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=29}}{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=37}} In his inaugural lecture as professor of Greek in May 1938, he condemned Britain's policy of appeasement.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=45}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=33}}<ref>Enoch Powell, ''Greek in the University: An Inaugural Lecture'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), p9.</ref><ref group="nb">After [[Neville Chamberlain]]'s first visit to [[Adolf Hitler]] at [[Berchtesgaden]], Powell wrote in a letter to his parents on 18 September 1938: "I do here, in the most solemn and bitter manner, curse the Prime Minister of England for having cumulated all his other betrayals of the national interest and honour, by his last terrible exhibition of dishonour, weakness and gullibility. The depths of infamy to which our accurst "love of peace" can lower us are unfathomable.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=47}}<ref group="nb">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 [[Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax|Halifax]] and all the other smarmy traitors".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=53}} At the outbreak of war, Powell immediately returned to England.{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|p=55}}

== Military service ==
In October 1939 Powell enlisted as a private in the [[Royal Warwickshire Regiment]]. He had trouble enlisting, as during the "[[Phoney War]]" the [[War Office]] did not want men with no military training.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=57}} Rather than waiting to be called up, he claimed to be Australian, as Australians (many of whom had travelled to Britain to join up) were allowed to enlist straight away.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=39}} He was promoted from private to lance-corporal and completed officer training. He told colleagues that he expected to be at least a [[Major general (United Kingdom)|major-general]] by the end of the war.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=57–58}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=40}}

On 18 May 1940 Powell was commissioned as a second lieutenant onto the [[General Service Corps|General List]].<ref>''[[The London Gazette]]'', Issue 34855 (Supplement), 24 May 1940, [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34855/supplement/3097 3097], [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34855/supplement/3101 3101]</ref> He was transferred to the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]] and later promoted to captain, posted as GSO3 (Intelligence) to the 1st (later 9th) Armoured Division. During this time, he taught himself Russian; as insufficient Russian-speaking officers were available at the [[War Office]], his knowledge of Russian and his textual analysis skills were used to translate a Russian parachute training manual; he was convinced that the [[Soviet Union]] must eventually enter the war on the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] side.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=55, 64}}

In October 1941 Powell was posted to [[Cairo]] in the [[Kingdom of Egypt]] and then transferred back to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was promoted to major in May 1942{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|p=68}} and then to [[lieutenant colonel]] in August 1942.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=70}} In that role he helped to plan the [[Second Battle of El Alamein]], having previously helped to plan the attack on [[Erwin Rommel]]'s supply lines.{{Sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=41}} The following year, he was appointed a [[Order of the British Empire#Current classes|Member of the Order of the British Empire]] (MBE) for his military service.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35908 |date=16 February 1943 |page=861 |supp=y}}</ref> During his time in [[Algiers]], Powell began to distrust the United States' position. Powell's suspicion of the anti-British Empire nature of the [[US federal government]]'s foreign policy continued for the remainder of the war and into his subsequent post-war political career.{{Sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=86–87}}

Following the [[Axis powers|Axis]] defeat at the [[Second Battle of El Alamein]], Powell's attention increasingly moved to the [[Pacific War|Far East theatre]], where the Allies were fighting the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] (IJA).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=76}} He wished to be assigned to the [[Chindits]] units operating in [[Myanmar|Burma]]. He secured a posting to the [[British Indian Army]] in [[Delhi]] as a lieutenant-colonel in military intelligence in August 1943.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=82}} Powell was appointed Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee for India and [[Lord Mountbatten]]'s [[Southeast Asia]] Command,{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=50}} involved in planning an amphibious offensive against [[Sittwe|Akyab]].

Powell had continued to learn Urdu. He had an ambition of eventually becoming [[Governor-General of India|Viceroy of India]], and when Mountbatten transferred his staff to [[Kandy]], [[British Ceylon|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 [[Myanmar|Burma]] campaign of Field Marshal [[William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim|William Slim]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=93}} Powell ended the war as a [[Brigadier (United Kingdom)|brigadier]], for a while, the youngest in the British Army.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=93}} He told a colleague that he expected to be head of all military intelligence in "the next war".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=54}} 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".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=44}}

==Entry into politics==
Powell voted for the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] in their [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 landslide victory]] because he wanted to punish the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] for the [[Munich Agreement]]. After the war he joined the Conservatives and worked for the [[Conservative Research Department]] (CRD) under [[Rab Butler]], where his colleagues included [[Iain Macleod]] and [[Reginald Maudling]].{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=51–53}}

Powell's ambition to be Viceroy of India crumbled in February 1947 when the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]], [[Clement Attlee]], announced that [[Indian independence movement|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.{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=51}} He came to terms with it by becoming fiercely anti-imperialist, believing that once India had gone, the whole empire should follow it.{{Citation needed|date=April 2012}} This [[Absolute idealism|logical absolutism]] explained his later indifference to the [[Suez Crisis]], his contempt for the Commonwealth and his urging that Britain should end any remaining pretence that it was a world power.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

After unsuccessfully contesting the Labour Party's [[safe seat]] of [[Normanton (UK Parliament constituency)|Normanton]] at a [[1947 Normanton by-election|by-election in 1947]] (when the Labour majority was 62 per cent),{{sfn|Craig|1983}}{{page needed|date=March 2026}} he was elected the Conservative MP for [[Wolverhampton South West]] at the [[1950 United Kingdom general election|1950 general election]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

===First years as a backbencher===
On 16 March 1950 Powell made his [[maiden speech]] in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]]. For the rest of his life he regarded this speech as the finest he ever delivered (rather than the much more well-known 1968 anti-immigration speech).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=184}}{{sfn|Collings|1991|p=230}}<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1950/mar/16/defence#S5CV0472P0_19500316_HOC_425 DEFENCE HC Deb 16 March 1950 vol 472 cc1264-399] at api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 16 November 2011.</ref> On 3 March 1953 he spoke against the [[Royal Titles Act 1953 (United Kingdom)|Royal Titles Bill]] in the Commons.<ref group="nb">Powell 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?"</ref>{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=195–202}}<ref group="nb">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 1931|Statute of Westminster]], is described as the 'British Commonwealth of Nations, "say that he is Monarch of a certain territory and his other realms and territories is as good as to say that he is king of his kingdom. We have perpetrated a solecism in the title we are proposing to attach to our Sovereign and we have done so out of what might almost be called an abject desire to eliminate the expression 'British'. The same desire has been felt&nbsp;... to eliminate this word before the term 'Commonwealth'&nbsp;... Why is it, then, that we are so anxious, in the description of our own Monarch, in a title for use in this country, to eliminate any reference to the seat, the focus and the origin of this vast aggregate of territories? Why is it that this "teeming womb of royal Kings", as Shakespeare called it, wishes now to be anonymous?</ref>{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=196–199}}<ref group="nb">Powell said that the answer was that because the [[British Nationality Act 1948]] 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."</ref>{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=199–201}}<ref group="nb">These changes were "greatly repugnant" to Powell: "if they are changes which were demanded by those who in many wars had fought with this country, by nations who maintained an allegiance to the Crown, and who signified a desire to be in the future as were in the past; if it were our friends who had come to us and said: "We want this," I would say: "Let it go. Let us admit the divisibility of the Crown. Let us sink into anonymity and cancel the word 'British' from our titles. If they like the conundrum 'Head of the Commonwealth' in the Royal style, let it be there." However, the underlying evil of this is that we are doing it for the sake not of our friends but of those who are not our friends. We are doing this for the sake of those to whom the very names 'Britain' and 'British' are repugnant.&nbsp;... We are doing this for the sake of those who have deliberately cast off their allegiance to our common Monarchy.</ref>{{sfn|Collings|1991|p=201}}

In mid-November 1953, Powell secured a place on the [[1922 Committee]]'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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=189}} 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 Britain 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.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=99–100}}

==In and out of office==
===Junior Housing Minister===
On 21 December 1955 Powell was appointed parliamentary secretary to [[Duncan Sandys]] at the [[Ministry of Housing and Local Government|Ministry of Housing]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=203–204}} In early 1956 Powell attended a subcommittee on immigration control as a housing minister and advocated immigration controls.<ref group="nb">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 (journalist)|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]] when existing tenants moved out, thereby phasing out regulation.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=205–209}}

===Financial Secretary to the Treasury===
When Macmillan succeeded Eden as prime minister, Powell was offered the office of [[Financial Secretary to the Treasury]] on 14 January 1957. This office was the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]]'s deputy and the most important job outside the Cabinet.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=210–211}}<ref group="nb">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&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... 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".</ref>

In January 1958 Powell resigned, along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer [[Peter Thorneycroft]] and his Treasury colleague [[Nigel Birch]], in protest of government plans for increased expenditure; he was a staunch advocate of disinflation or, in modern terms, a [[monetarist]] and a believer in market forces.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=180–189}} Powell was also a member of the [[Mont Pelerin Society]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shammas |first=Victor L. |date=March 2018 |title=Burying Mont Pèlerin: Milton Friedman and neoliberal vanguardism |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8675.12322 |journal=Constellations |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |page=9 |doi=10.1111/1467-8675.12322 |issn=1351-0487|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Corthorn|2019|p=53}}<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Shrapnel |first1=Norman |last2=Phillips |first2=Mike |date=7 February 2001 |title=Enoch Powell |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241114013632/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips |archive-date=14 November 2024 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Retail price index inflation was between 3.7 and 3 per cent at the time of his resignation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Weston |first=Thomas |date=8 December 2023 |title=The UK economy in the 1950s |url=https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uk-economy-in-the-1950s/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240302234518/https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uk-economy-in-the-1950s/ |archive-date=2 March 2024 |website=House of Lords Library |publisher=[[Parliament of the United Kingdom]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=RPI All Items: Percentage change over 12 months: Jan 1987=100 – |url=https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czbh/mm23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241226022842/https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czbh/mm23 |archive-date=2024-12-26 |access-date=2025-01-01 |website=[[Office for National Statistics]] |publisher=[[UK Statistics Authority]]}}</ref>

During the late 1950s Powell promoted control of the money supply to prevent inflation and, during the 1960s, was an advocate of [[free market]] policies, which at the time were seen as extreme, unworkable and unpopular. Powell advocated the privatisation of the [[General Post Office|Post Office]] and the telephone network as early as 1964.{{Sfn|Roth|1970|p=318}} 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.{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=319}} 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".<ref>{{Citation | title = 'One per cent not a triviality': Mr. Powell tells of dilemma | work = [[The Times]] | place = London | date = 10 January 1958 | page = 8}}</ref>

===Hola Massacre speech===
On 27 July 1959 Powell delivered a speech in the Commons about the [[Hola massacre|Hola Camp]] in [[Kenya Colony|Kenya]], where eleven [[Kenya Land and Freedom Army|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'."{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=206–207}} Powell also disagreed with the notion that because it was in Africa, different methods were acceptable:

{{blockquote|Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, "We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here at home". We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere. All Government, all influence of man upon man, rests upon opinion. What we can do in Africa, where we still govern and where we no longer govern, depends upon the opinion which is entertained of the way in which this country acts and the way in which Englishmen act. We cannot, we dare not, in Africa of all places, fall below our own highest standards in the acceptance of responsibility.{{sfn|Collings|1991|p=207}}}}

[[Denis Healey]], a member of Parliament from 1952 to 1992, later said this speech was "the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard&nbsp;... it had all the moral passion and rhetorical force of [[Demosthenes]]".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=252}} ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=254}}

===Minister of Health===
Powell returned to the government in July 1960, when he was appointed Minister of Health,{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=229ff}} although he did not become a member of the [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|Cabinet]] until the [[Night of the Long Knives (1962)|1962 reshuffle]].{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=270}} During a meeting with parents of babies that had been born with deformities caused by the drug [[thalidomide]], he refused 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]] had done).{{sfn|Stephens|Brynner|2001|pp=51, 80–81}}

In December 1961 Powell, as Minister of Health, announced that the [[birth control pill]] Conovid could be prescribed to women through the [[National Health Service]] (NHS) at a subsidised price of 2 shillings per month.<ref>{{cite news |date=15 December 1961|title=Subsidizing birth control |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|volume=78|issue=24|page=55|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080205155642/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 February 2008}}</ref>

As health minister he developed the 1962 Hospital Plan.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rivett|first1=Geoffrey|title=Hospital Development : 1948–1968|url=http://www.nhshistory.net/hospital_development.htm|access-date=28 September 2014}}</ref> He began a debate on the neglect of [[Institutionalisation|psychiatric institutions]], calling for them to be replaced by wards in general hospitals.<ref group="nb">In his 1961 "Water Tower" speech, he said: "There they stand, isolated, majestic, imperious, brooded over by the gigantic water-tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside—the asylums which our forefathers built with such immense solidity to express the notions of their day. Do not for a moment underestimate their powers of resistance to our assault. Let me describe some of the defences which we have to storm."</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://studymore.org.uk/xpowell.htm| first = Enoch | last = Powell | title = Water Tower Speech | year = 1961 | publisher = studymore | location = UK |access-date= 21 December 2013}}</ref> The speech catalysed debate. It was one of several strands that led to the [[Care in the Community]] initiative of the 1980s. In 1993, however, Powell stated that 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 cost more, not less, than the old way because community care was decentralised and intimate as well as being "more human"; and his successors had not, Powell stated, provided the money for local authorities to spend on mental health care. Institutional care had therefore been neglected and there was not investment in community care.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=941}}

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 NHS. However, the Minister of Health was not responsible for recruitment (this was left to health authorities).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=286}}<ref group="nb">[[Sir George Godber]], [[Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom)|Chief Medical Officer]] for Her Majesty's Government in [[England]] from 1960 to 1973 (and for [[England and Wales]] from 1960 to 1969), stated that the allegation was "bunk&nbsp;... absolute rubbish. There was no such policy".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=597}}<ref group="nb">Powell's biographer [[Simon Heffer]] 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".</ref><ref group="nb">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 [in the Commonwealth or colonies."</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=222–226}} [[Lord Rippon of Hexham]] made the same accusation  in  April  1971 against Powell,  as  part  of a campaign  by  the  then  Conservative  Government  to  damage Powell who  was the leading  figure in opposition  to  joining  the  Common  Market. Powell  asked  Rippon  to  supply  evidence for  his  assertion. Rippon  subsequently  replied  that he  could  not  and gave  Powell  an  apology.<ref>''The Times'' (17 February 1998), p. 21.</ref>

Powell did welcome immigrant nurses and doctors, under the condition that they were to be temporary workers training in Britain and would then return to their native countries as qualified doctors or nurses.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=222–226}} Shortly after becoming Minister of Health, Powell asked Rab Butler (the [[Home Secretary]]) whether he could be appointed to a ministerial committee that monitored immigration.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=222–226}} Powell was worried about the strain caused by NHS immigrants, and papers show that he wanted a stronger restriction on Commonwealth immigration than that which was passed in 1961.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=222–226}}

== 1960s ==
===Leadership elections===
In October 1963, along with [[Iain Macleod]], [[Reginald Maudling]] and [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone]], Powell tried in vain to persuade Butler not to serve under the [[Earl of Home]] (soon to be known as [[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.{{sfn|Shepherd|1994|p=334}} Macleod and Powell refused to serve in Lord 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.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=302–303, 315}} 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 Lord Home: "How can I serve under a man whose views on Africa are positively [[Portuguese Colonial War|Portuguese]]?"<ref>Sandbrook 2005, pp. 701–705.</ref>

During the [[1964 United Kingdom general election|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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=360}} [[Norman Fowler]], then a reporter for ''[[The 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?"{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=360}}

Following the Conservatives' defeat in the election, he agreed to return to the front bench as Transport Spokesman.{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=316}} In July 1965 he stood in [[1965 Conservative Party leadership election|the first-ever Conservative Party leadership election]], but came a distant third to [[Edward Heath]], obtaining only 15 votes, just below the result [[Hugh Fraser (British politician)|Hugh Fraser]] would gain in the 1975 contest. Heath appointed him Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=327ff}} 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.{{sfn|Shepherd|1994|pp=401–404}}

===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 Britain's imperial past and stressing that Britain was a European power and therefore an alliance with Western European states from possible attack from the East was central to Britain's safety. He defended [[Nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom|Britain'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".<ref>Enoch Powell, ''Freedom and Reality'' (Eliot Right Way Books, 1969), p. 224.</ref> Also, Powell called into question Western military commitments [[East of Suez]]:

{{blockquote|However much we may do to safeguard and reassure the new independent countries in Asia and Africa, the eventual limits of Russian and Chinese advance in those directions will be fixed by a balance of forces which will itself be Asiatic and African. The two Communist empires are already in a state of mutual antagonism; but every advance or threat of advance by one or the other calls into existence countervailing forces, sometimes nationalist in character, sometimes expansionist, which will ultimately check it. We have to reckon with the harsh fact that the attainment of this eventual equilibrium of forces may at some point be delayed rather than hastened by Western military presence.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=391}}}}

The ''Daily Telegraph'' journalist [[David Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford|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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=391}} However, the Americans were worried by Powell's speech as they wanted British military commitments in South-East Asia as they were still [[Vietnam War|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]]'' said Powell's speech was "a potential declaration of independence from American policy".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=391–392}} During the [[1966 United Kingdom general election|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".<ref>[https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1966-07-07/debates/aece9b04-6b15-4755-a822-51f417952bce/Vietnam Vietnam, debated on Thursday 7 July 1966], ''Hansard'', Volume 731, parliament.uk, accessed 23 May 2021.</ref>

It transpired that US President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] had indeed asked prime minister [[Harold Wilson]] to send British forces for Vietnam. Powell learned later that Washington realised that public reaction to Powell's allegations made Wilson realise that any UK involvement in Vietnam would be deeply unpopular. After Wilson refused to join the USA's war, Powell responded: "The greatest service I have performed for my country, if that is so".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=406}} Labour was returned to power with a large majority; Heath retained Powell as Shadow Defence Secretary as he believed he "was too dangerous to leave out".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=410}}

In a speech on 26 May 1967, Powell criticised the UK's post-war world role:

{{blockquote|In our imagination the vanishing last vestiges&nbsp;... of Britain's once vast Indian Empire have transformed themselves into a peacekeeping role on which the sun never sets. Under God's good providence and in partnership with the United States, we keep the peace of the world and rush hither and thither containing Communism, putting out brush fires and coping with subversion. It is difficult to describe, without using terms derived from psychiatry, a notion having so few points of contact with reality.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=431}}}}

In 1967 Powell spoke of his opposition to the immigration of Kenyan Asians to Britain after its leader [[Jomo Kenyatta]]'s discriminatory policies led to the flight of [[Indians in Kenya|Asians]] from that country.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/199901220021 |title=When Labour played the racist card |work=New Statesman |date=22 January 1999 |access-date=12 August 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090702140542/http://www.newstatesman.com/199901220021 |archive-date=2 July 2009 }}</ref>

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 [''[[sic]]'']".<ref>{{Citation | first1 = Andrew | last1 = Alexander | first2 = Alan | last2 = Watkins | title = The Making of the Prime Minister | place = London | publisher = MacDonald | year = 1970 | page = 82}}</ref>

== National figure ==
===1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech===
{{Main|Rivers of Blood speech}}

After the Birmingham-based television company [[Associated Television|ATV]] saw an advance copy of the speech on the Saturday morning, 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]] ''[[Express & Star]]'', "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."<ref>{{cite news|title=My father and Enoch Powell|work=Shropshire Star|date=8 October 2016|page=3 (Weekend supplement)}} Article by Nicholas Jones, Clem Jones' son, condensed from book ''What Do We Mean By Local? The Rise, Fall – and possible rise again – of Local journalism'' (Abramis, 2013).</ref>

Powell was renowned for his oratorical skills and his maverick nature. On 20 April 1968, he gave a speech in [[Birmingham]] in which he warned his audience of what he believed would be the consequences of continued unchecked mass immigration from the Commonwealth to Britain. Above all, it is an allusion to the [[Ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] poet [[Virgil]] towards the end of the speech which has been remembered, giving the speech its colloquial name:

{{blockquote|As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River [[Tiber]] foaming with much blood'. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the 20th century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/enoch-powells-rivers-blood-speech/|title=Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=12 June 2020|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}</ref>}}

''[[The 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."<ref>''The Times'' editorial comment, Monday 22 April 1968.</ref>

The main political issue addressed by the speech was not immigration as such, however. It was the introduction of the [[Race Relations Act 1968]] (by the Labour government at the time), which Powell found offensive and immoral. The Act would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of [[Race (human categorization)|race]] 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.<ref>{{cite Hansard | url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/apr/23/race-relations-bill |title=Race Relations Bill | house=HC | date=23 April 1968 | column_start=53 | column_end=198 |volume=763 }}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|pp=285–286}}</ref>

One feature of his speech was the extensive quotation of a letter he received detailing the experiences of one of his constituents in [[Wolverhampton South West (UK Parliament constituency)|Wolverhampton]]. 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=460}}</ref> Powell's critics suspected him of fabricating some of his stories, and days after the speech [[Ann Dummett]] said she'd recently heard a story in which "almost every circumstantial detail was the same" as Powell's, except the widow was in London.<ref name="ferdinand">{{cite news |last1=Mount |first1=Ferdinand |title=Wedded to the Absolute |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n18/ferdinand-mount/wedded-to-the-absolute |access-date=9 October 2025 |work=London Review of Books |date=26 September 2019 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200714145945/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n18/ferdinand-mount/wedded-to-the-absolute |archive-date=14 July 2020 |language=en}}</ref> More recent research has identified incorrect details within the story.<ref name="ferdinand"/>

When Heath telephoned [[Margaret Thatcher]] 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|Shadow Cabinet]] the day after the speech, and Powell never held another senior political office again. Powell received almost 120,000 (predominantly positive) letters and a [[Gallup poll]] 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.{{sfn|Ostow|1991}}{{page needed|date=March 2026}} One poll concluded that between 61 and 73 per cent disagreed with Heath sacking Powell.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=352}} According to George L. Bernstein, many British people felt that Powell "was the first British politician who was actually listening to them".{{sfn|Bernstein|2004|p=274}} Appearing on [[Desert Island Discs]] (with Sue Lawley) in 1989, Powell said that Heath was objecting only to the tone of the speech, since the content was pure Tory immigration policy. Powell then added that Heath was a musician who understood "tone".<ref>BBC radio sound archives</ref>

After ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' branded his speeches "racialist", Powell sued them 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.<ref>[[Express and Star]], 20 January 2014. [https://www.expressandstar.com/news/2014/01/20/right-or-wrong-the-legacy-of-enoch-powells-speech-lives-on/] Accessed 28 June 2015.</ref>

Following the "Rivers of Blood" speech, Powell was transformed into a national public figure and won huge support across Britain.<ref name="dumbrell" /><ref name="alor" /> Three days after the speech, on 23 April, as the Race Relations Bill was being debated in the Commons, 1,000 dockers marched on [[Westminster]] protesting against the "[[victimisation]]" 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 union]]ists, in London and Wolverhampton.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=354}}

The Conservative politician [[Michael Heseltine]] (the future [[Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|deputy prime minister]] under [[John Major]]) stated that in the aftermath of the speech that if 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".{{sfn|Murray|2017|p=15}}

==='Morecambe Budget'===
Powell made a speech in the town of [[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&nbsp;3d to 4s&nbsp;3d in the pound (basic rate cut from 41 to 21 per cent){{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}}{{sfn|Lewis|1979|p=69}} and how capital gains tax and [[Selective Employment Tax]] 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;{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=375–376}} and abolishing the [[National Economic Development Council]] and the Prices and Incomes Board.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=485}} 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=485–486}}

===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 [[House of Lords]] he would be its "resolute enemy".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=474}} 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]] to reform the Lords, titled the Parliament (No. 2) Bill.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=489}} 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=495}} 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=496}}

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. 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]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=496}}

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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=497}}

Following more speeches against the bill during early 1969, and faced with the fact that a bloc of left-wing Labour members were also against reforming the Lords as they desired its abolition altogether, Wilson announced on 17 April that the bill was being withdrawn. Wilson's statement was brief and Powell intervened, "Don't eat them too quickly", which provoked much laughter in the chamber.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=521}} Later that day Powell said in a speech to the [[Primrose League]]:

{{blockquote|There was an instinct, inarticulate but deep and sound, that the traditional, prescriptive House of Lords posed no threat and injured no interests, but might yet, for all its illogicalities and anomalies, make itself felt on occasion to useful purpose. The same sound instinct was repelled by the idea of a new-fashioned second chamber, artificially constructed by power, party, and patronage, to function in a particular way. Not for the first time, the common people of this country proved the surest defenders of their traditional institutions.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=521}}}}

The biographer [[Simon Heffer]] described the defeat of Lords reform as "perhaps the greatest triumph of Powell's political career".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=521}}

=== Membership to the European Economic Community ===
In 1961, Conservative Prime Minister [[Harold Macmillan]] applied for Britain to join the [[European Economic Community]].  Powell, a supporter of free-market economic policies, supported the application for British membership, seeing it as a path towards the liberalisation of British economy. Examining more closely the structure and workings of the EEC, Powell understood that joining the EEC would extinguish Britain's ability to function as a self-governing nation. He stated that the question of British membership into the EEC "must be the question which subtends all others...for &ndash; in peace as in war, it is the great, the ultimate, question for any nation".{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=218-219, 263}}{{sfn|Powell|1973a|pp=110–111}}

The EEC membership issue eventually caused Powell to leave the Conservative Party on 23 February 1974, less than week before the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|general election]], condemning Conservative Prime Minister, [[Edward Heath]], for taking Britain into the EEC on 1 January 1973 without a specific electoral mandate from the British voters to proceed in that path. Following his resignation, Powell then shocked his former Conservative colleagues, as well as the opposition, by calling on the public to vote for the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], on the basis that the Labour leadership had proposed a [[referendum]] on Britain's EEC membership.

===Departure from the Conservative Party===
A [[Gallup poll]] in February 1969 showed Powell to be the "most admired person" in British public opinion.<ref name="dumbrell"/>

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 his fellow Conservative [[Julian Amery]] later in the debate criticised Powell for his anti-nuclear 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=549}}

The [[1970 United Kingdom general election|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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} However, the Conservative victory was reportedly not to Powell's advantage, who, according to friends, "sat in his head in his hands" for many days afterwards.<ref>{{Citation |last=Cockerell |first=Michael |title=Odd Man Out: A Film Portrait of Enoch Powell (1995) |date=1995 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaTdoxuiKQY |publisher=BBC |language=en |access-date=2023-01-03}}</ref>

Powell had voted against the [[Schuman Declaration]] 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 Britain'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 the 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.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

During 1970 Powell gave speeches about the EEC in [[Lyon]] (in French), [[Frankfurt]] (in German), [[Turin]] (in Italian) and [[The Hague]].{{sfn|Howard|2014|p=20}}

The Conservatives had promised at the 1970 general election<ref>{{cite web | work = Politics Resources | url = http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con70.htm | title = Not updated: British Conservative Party election manifesto | orig-year = 1970 | publisher = Keele | location = UK | date = 11 March 2008 | access-date = 10 August 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100110125744/http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con70.htm | archive-date = 10 January 2010 | url-status = dead }}</ref> in relation to the Common Market, "Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less." The second reading of the Bill to put the Treaty into law was passed by just eight votes and 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 Britain finally entered the EEC in January 1973, 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.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

A ''[[Daily Express]]'' opinion poll in 1972 showed Powell to be the most popular politician in the country.<ref name="alor"/> 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]], 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 [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|snap general election of February 1974]] called by [[Edward Heath]]. 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.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |title=1974 |work=Express & Star |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717052230/http://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |archive-date=17 July 2012 }}</ref> The monetarist economist [[Milton Friedman]] sent Powell a letter praising him as principled,{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=703}} and notably, there was a breakaway faction of the Conservative Party in [[Gloucester (UK Parliament constituency)|Gloucester]] which selected a candidate who stood under the party name of "Powell Conservative", securing 366 votes, 0.7 per cent of the overall vote share in the constituency.<ref>{{cite web
 |url=http://spprd.insec.netcopy.thompsonjames.co.uk/article/23rd-february-1974/11/1-oucester-a-l-ocal-correspondent-he-intervention-
 |title=Reports From the Marginals − Gloucester
 |work=The Spectator Archive
 |access-date=12 October 2024
 |df=dmy
 |archive-date=27 May 2025
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250527152418/http://spprd.insec.netcopy.thompsonjames.co.uk/article/23rd-february-1974/11/1-oucester-a-l-ocal-correspondent-he-intervention-
 |url-status=dead
 }}</ref> There was also a candidate listed in the neighbouring constituency of [[Stroud (UK Parliament constituency)|Stroud]] who obtained 470 votes, 0.8 per cent of the overall vote share in the constituency.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell had arranged for his friend [[Andrew Alexander (journalist)|Andrew Alexander]] to talk to [[Joe Haines (journalist)|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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=701–702}} 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=704–705}} Powell gave this speech at the Mecca Dance Hall in the [[Bull Ring, Birmingham|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":

{{blockquote|Curiously, it so happens that the question "Who governs Britain?" which at the moment is being frivolously posed, might be taken, in real earnest, as the title of what I have to say. This is the first and last election at which the British people will be given the opportunity to decide whether their country is to remain a democratic nation, governed by the will of its own electorate expressed in its own Parliament, or whether it will become one province in a new European superstate under institutions which know nothing of the political rights and liberties that we have so long taken for granted.{{sfn|Collings|1991|p=454}}}}

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".{{sfn|Collings|1991|pp=456–457}} He then advocated a vote for the Labour Party:

{{blockquote|The question is: can they now be prevented from taking back into their own hands the decision about their identity and their form of government which truly was theirs all along? I do not believe they can be prevented: for they are now, at a general election, provided with a clear, definite and practicable alternative, namely, a fundamental renegotiation directed to regain free access to world food markets and recover or retain the powers of Parliament, a renegotiation to be followed in any event by a specific submission of the outcome to the electorate, a renegotiation protected by an immediate moratorium or stop on all further integration of the UK into the Community. This alternative is offered, as such an alternative must be in our parliamentary democracy, by a political party capable of securing a majority in the House of Commons and sustaining a Government.{{sfn|Collings|1991|p=458}}}}

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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=707}} On 25 February he made another speech at [[Shipley, West Yorkshire|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!"{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=708–709}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGkAou2uqBA |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/CGkAou2uqBA| archive-date=11 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=Enoch Powell denies he is a Judas|publisher=YouTube |date=4 February 1974 |access-date=14 October 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Later in the speech Powell said, "I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. It is part of me&nbsp;... it is something I cannot alter".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=709}} Later in life, 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".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=404}}

Powell, in an interview on 26 February, said he would be voting for [[Helene Middleweek]], the Labour candidate, rather than the Conservative [[Nicholas Budgen]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=709–710}} Powell did not stay up on election night to watch the results on television. When on 1 March he saw the headline in '''The Times'' "Mr Heath's general election gamble fails", he reacted by singing the ''[[Te Deum]]''. He later said: "I had had my revenge on the man who had destroyed the self-government of the United Kingdom".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=710–711}} The election result was a [[hung parliament]]. Although the Conservatives had won the most votes, Labour finished five seats ahead of them. The national swing to Labour was 1 per cent; 4 per cent in Powell's heartland, the [[West Midlands conurbation]]; and 16 per cent in his old constituency (although Budgen won the seat).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=712}} According to Powell biographer [[Simon Heffer]], both Powell and Heath believed that Powell had been responsible for the Conservatives' losing the election.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=712}}

== Ulster Unionist ==
===1974–1979===
In a sudden [[October 1974 United Kingdom general election|general election in October 1974]], Powell returned to Parliament as [[Ulster Unionist]] (UUP) MP for [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]], having rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the far-right [[National Front (UK)|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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=732–733}}

Since 1968 Powell had been an increasingly frequent visitor to Northern Ireland and, in keeping with his general [[British nationalism|British nationalist]] viewpoint, 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 over Northern Ireland|direct rule]] in 1972. He strongly believed that it would survive only if the [[Unionists (Ireland)|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 [[House of Commons (UK)|Westminster]] never to be a member (and, to date, one of only four, the others being [[Ken Maginnis]], [[Danny Kinahan]] and [[Lady Hermon]]), and he was an outspoken opponent of the more extremist [[Ulster loyalism|loyalism]] espoused by [[Ian Paisley]] and his supporters.{{Citation needed|date=October 2019}}

In the aftermath of the [[Birmingham pub bombings]] by the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] (IRA) on 21 November 1974, the government passed the [[Prevention of Terrorism Acts|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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=742}}

When Heath called a [[1975 Conservative Party leadership election|leadership election]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=745}} During February 1975, after winning the leadership election, [[Margaret Thatcher]] 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 public 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=747}} Powell also attributed Thatcher's success to luck, saying that she was faced with "supremely unattractive opponents at the time".<ref>''The Times'', 13 February 1975.</ref>

During the [[1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum|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]], [[Tony Benn]], [[Peter Shore]] and [[Barbara Castle]]. The electorate voted 'Yes' by a margin of more than two to one.<ref>Mark Baimbridge, ''The 1975 Referendum on Europe – Volume 2: Current Analysis and Lessons'' (2015), p. 10.</ref><ref>David Butler and Uwe Kitzinger, ''The 1975 Referendum'' (Macmillan, 1976), pp. 178, 194.</ref>

On 23 March 1977, in a [[vote of confidence]] 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.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell said that the only way to stop the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] was for Northern Ireland to be an integral part of Britain, treated the same as any other of its constituent parts. He said the ambiguous nature of the region's status, with its own [[Parliament of Northern Ireland|parliament]] and [[Prime Minister of Northern Ireland|prime minister]], gave hope to the IRA that it could be detached from the rest of Britain:

{{blockquote|Every word or act which holds out the prospect that their unity with the rest of the United Kingdom might be negotiable is itself, consciously or unconsciously, a contributory cause to the continuation of violence in Northern Ireland.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=543}}}}

Nonetheless, in the [[1987 United Kingdom general election|1987 general election]] that he lost, Powell campaigned in [[Bangor, County Down|Bangor]] for [[Jim Kilfedder]], the devolutionist North Down [[Ulster Popular Unionist Party]] MP, and against [[Robert McCartney (Northern Irish politician)|Bob McCartney]], who was standing as a [[Real Unionist]] on a policy of integration and equal citizenship for Northern Ireland.<ref>Advertisement in ''Co Down Spectator'' of 4 June 1987 from South Down Unionists (with photograph of Powell) calling for return of Kilfedder.</ref>

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-Ireland state because the condition for the [[Republic of Ireland]]'s membership of [[NATO]], Powell said, was Northern Ireland.{{Citation needed|date=June 2017}} The Americans wanted to close the 'yawning gap' in NATO defence that was the Republic of Ireland's coast to northern Spain. Powell had a copy of a [[US State Department]] Policy Statement<ref>{{citation |url=http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1950v03 | last1 = Gleason | first1 = S Everett | editor-last = Aandahl | editor-first = Fredrick | title = Foreign relations of the United States, 1950. Western Europe | volume = III | place = Washington, DC | publisher = Government Printing Office | year = 1950 |access-date=10 August 2009}}</ref> from 15 August 1950, in which the American federal 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."{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=635}}

Though he voted with the Conservatives in a vote of confidence that brought down the Labour government on 28 March, Powell did not welcome Thatcher's victory in the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979 general election]]. "Grim" was Powell's response when he was asked what he thought of it, 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. In the days following the election Powell wrote to [[James Callaghan]] to commiserate on his defeat, pay tribute to his premiership and to wish him well.<ref>Callaghan – a life – Kenneth O. Morgan (1998).</ref>

===1979–1982===
Following a [[1980 St Pauls riot|riot in Bristol]] in 1980, Powell stated that the media were ignoring similar events in [[south London]] and Birmingham: "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?"<ref>''The Times'' (12 July 1980), p. 2.</ref>

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 Britain did not possess an independent deterrent and that through NATO, Britain was tied to the nuclear deterrence theory of the US.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=843}} 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]] would be ready to invade Britain and had used a nuclear weapon on somewhere such as [[Rockall]] to demonstrate their willingness to use it:

{{blockquote |What would the United Kingdom do? Would it discharge [[Polaris (UK nuclear programme)|Polaris]], [[Trident (UK nuclear programme)|Trident]] or whatever against the main centres of population of the Continent of Europe or in European Russia? If so, what would be the consequence? The consequence would not be that we should survive, that we should repel our antagonist—nor would it be that we should escape defeat. The consequence would be that we would make certain, as far as is humanly possible, the virtual destruction and elimination of the hope of the future in these islands.&nbsp;... I would much sooner that the power to use it was not in the hands of any individual in this country at all.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=876–877}}}}

Powell went on to say that if the Soviet invasion had already begun and Britain 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 Britain'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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=877}}

[[John Casey (academic)|John Casey]] records an exchange between Powell and Thatcher during a meeting of the [[Conservative Philosophy Group]]:

{{blockquote|[[Edward Norman (historian)|Edward Norman]] (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to "Western values". Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: "No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government." Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): "Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values." "No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed." Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism.<ref>John Casey, "[http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/28511/the-revival-of-tory-philosophy/ The revival of Tory philosophy]", ''The Spectator'', 14 March 2007.</ref>}}

On 28 March 1981 Powell gave a speech to [[Ashton-under-Lyne]] 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: {{"'}}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".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-09-26 |title='A Different Reality': minority struggle in British cities |url=http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CRER/differentreality/timeline.html |access-date=2022-12-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926055138/http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CRER/differentreality/timeline.html |archive-date=26 September 2011 |quote=28 March: Enoch Powell warns of racial 'civil war' in Britain.}}</ref><ref>''The Times'' (30 March 1981), p. 2.</ref> 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]], criticised Powell for using "Munich beer-hall language".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=845}} On 11 April there was a [[1981 Brixton riot|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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=845}}

In July a [[1981 Toxteth riots|riot took place]] in [[Toxteth]], 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 immigrants 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". The Labour MP [[Martin Flannery (British politician)|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 he knew about [[inner cities]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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". [[Judith Hart|Dame Judith Hart]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=846}}

After the [[Scarman Report]] 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. Powell instead argued that 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=851}}

===Falklands conflict===
When the [[Falkland Islands]] were [[Falklands War|invaded]] by [[Argentina]] in April 1982, Powell was given secret briefings on [[Privy Counsellor]] 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 Falklands would come later and that although it was right to put the issue before the United Nations, Britain 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 soubriquet 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."<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/03/falkland-islands Falkland Islands] ''Hansard'', 3 April 1982 vol 21 cc633–68.</ref> According to Thatcher's friends this had a "devastating impact" on her and encouraged her resolve.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=856}}

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&nbsp;... 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.&nbsp;... 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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell also criticised the United Nations Security Council's resolution calling for a "peaceful solution". He said that 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&nbsp;... 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.&nbsp;... 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".<ref>{{citation |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/14/falkland-islands#column_1159 |title=Falkland Islands |date=14 April 1982 |volume=21 |at=cc1159 |work=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]]}}</ref>

On 28 April Powell spoke in the Commons against the Northern Ireland Secretary's ([[Jim Prior]]) 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.<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/28/northern-ireland-devolution Northern Ireland (Devolution)] ''Hansard'', 28 April 1982 vol 22 cc850–936.</ref>

The next day Powell disagreed with the Labour Party leader [[Michael Foot]]'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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/29/falkland-islands Falkland Islands] ''Hansard'', 29 April 1982 vol 22 cc980–1059.</ref>

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]]) 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&nbsp;... 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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/may/13/falkland-islands-1 Falkland Islands] ''Hansard'', 13 May 1982 vol 23 cc952–1034.</ref>

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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/jun/17/engagements Engagements] ''Hansard'', 17 June 1982 vol 25 cc1080–4.</ref> Their mutual friend [[Ian Gow]] printed and framed this and the original question and presented it to Thatcher, who hung it in her office.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=861}}

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.&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... the United States have an almost neurotic sense of vulnerability&nbsp;... its two coastlines, its two theatres, its two navies are separated by the entire length of the New World&nbsp;... she lives with&nbsp;... 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]] from 1914 onwards could never quite exorcise the spectre.&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... 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".<ref>''The Times'' (29 June 1982), p. 10.</ref>

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&nbsp;... 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=861–862}}

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 [[Annexation|annexe]] the Islands from their rightful owners. It was therefore "disgraceful" for Britain 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.&nbsp;... The moral is to cease to engage in humbug, which almost all have happily and self-righteously engaged in for a generation".<ref>''The Times'' (5 February 1983), p. 2.</ref>

===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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=871}} At the [[1983 United Kingdom general election|1983 general election]] Powell had to face a [[Democratic Unionist Party|DUP]] candidate in his constituency and [[Ian Paisley]] denounced Powell as "a foreigner and an [[Anglo-Catholic]]".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=872}}

On 31 May Powell gave a speech at [[Downpatrick]] 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]], 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.&nbsp;... 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]] 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?"{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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]] 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".<ref>''The Times'' (1 June 1983), p. 4.</ref>

On 2 June Powell spoke against the stationing of American cruise missiles in Britain and asserted that the US 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".<ref>''The Times'' (3 June 1983), p. 5.</ref>

In 1983 his local agent was [[Jeffrey Donaldson]], later an Ulster Unionist MP before defecting to the DUP.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68692008 | title=Who is the former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson? | work=BBC News | date=29 March 2024 }}</ref>

===1983–1987===
In 1984 Powell alleged that the American [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) had murdered Lord Mountbatten and that the assassinations of the MPs [[Airey Neave]] and [[Robert Bradford (NI politician)|Robert Bradford]] were carried out at the direction of elements of the US federal government with the strategic objective of preventing Neave's policy of integration of Northern Ireland fully into the United Kingdom.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=881}} In 1986 Powell stated that the [[Irish National Liberation Army]] had not killed Neave but that "[[MI6]] and their friends" were responsible: Powell cited as his sources information that had been disclosed to him from within the [[Royal Ulster Constabulary]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=906}}

In 1985 race riots between the black community and the police broke out [[Broadwater Farm Riot|in London]] and [[1985 Handsworth riots|in Birmingham]], leading Powell to repeat his warning that ethnic civil conflict would be the ultimate outcome of mass immigration into the Great Britain and re-issue his call for a government-sponsored programme of [[repatriation]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell later came into conflict with Thatcher in November 1985 over her support for the [[Anglo-Irish Agreement]]. 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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1985/nov/14/engagements Engagements] ''Hansard'', 14 November 1985 vol 86 cc681–686.</ref>

[[1986 Northern Ireland by-elections|Along with other Unionist MPs]], Powell resigned his seat in protest and then narrowly regained it at the [[1986 South Down by-election|ensuing by-election]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

In 1986 the former Irish schoolteacher [[Seamus Mallon]] was a new entrant to the 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."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Hansard |title=Public Expenditure |date=20 February 1986 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/feb/20/public-expenditure#S6CV0092P0_19860220_HOC_375}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/seamus-mallon-an-honest-straight-talking-ulsterman-1.4150479|title=Seamus Mallon: An honest, straight-talking Ulsterman|newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] }}</ref> Mallon was found to have been correct.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/baruch_spinoza_101666|title = Baruch Spinoza Quotes}}</ref>

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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1987/apr/02/soviet-union-prime-ministers-visit Soviet Union (Prime Minister's Visit)], ''Hansard'', 2 April 1987 vol 113 cc1217–1231.</ref> 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 [[Intercontinental ballistic missile|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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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&nbsp;... 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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

The second event was [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s offer of both the Soviet Union and the United States agreeing to abolish intermediate-range [[ballistic missile]]s. 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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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&nbsp;... the fact that the Soviet Union knew&nbsp;... 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]], by the Emperor [[Wilhelm II|Wilhelm]] and by [[Adolf Hitler]]. 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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1987/apr/07/foreign-affairs Foreign Affairs], ''Hansard'', 7 April 1987 vol 114 cc178–254.</ref>

At the start of the 1987 general election Powell claimed the Conservatives' prospects did not look good: "I have the feeling of 1945".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=909}} 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 disaster|Chernobyl]] 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".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=496}}

However, Powell lost his seat in the election by 731 votes to the [[SDLP]]'s [[Eddie McGrady]], 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 in 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]] used on the death of the 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=911}}

He was offered a [[life peerage]], which was regarded as his right as a former Cabinet minister, but he declined it. He argued that as he had opposed the [[Life Peerages Act 1958]], it would be hypocritical for him to take one.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1998-02-09 |title=Obituary: Enoch Powell |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html |access-date=2024-03-21 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref>

== Post-parliamentary life ==
===1987–1992===
[[File:After Dark 3 July 1987.JPG|thumb|350px|Powell debating on the television discussion programme ''[[After Dark (TV programme)|After Dark]]'' in 1987 (more [[After Dark (TV programme)#Edward Teller and "Peace in Our Time"|here]])]]
Powell was critical of the [[Special Air Service]] (SAS) [[Operation Flavius|shootings of three unarmed IRA members]] in [[Gibraltar]] in March 1988.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=918}} 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]] of [[West Germany]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=922}}

In an interview for the ''Sunday People'' in December 1988, Powell said the Conservative Party was "rejoining Enoch" on the [[European Community]] 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=922}}

In early 1989 he made a programme (broadcast in July) on his visit to [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russia]] and his impressions on that country. The [[BBC]] originally wanted him to do a programme on India, but the [[India House, London|Indian High Commission]] in London refused him a visa. When he visited Russia, Powell went to the graves of 600,000 people who died during the [[Siege of Leningrad]], 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=925}} When [[German reunification]] was on the agenda in mid-1989, Powell said that Britain urgently needed to create an alliance with the Soviet Union in view of Germany's effect on the balance of power in Europe.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=925}}

Following Thatcher's [[Bruges speech]]<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107332 |title= Margaret Thatcher.org | access-date =10 August 2009 | format = Speech}}</ref> 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=925}} When inflation crept up that year, he condemned Chancellor of the Exchequer [[Nigel Lawson]]'s policy of printing money so sterling would shadow the [[Deutsche Mark]] and said that it was for Britain to join the [[European Monetary System]] (EMS).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=926}}

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 [[Single European Act]] of 1986). In a speech at [[Chatham House]] 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 Europe]]an nations previously under Russian rule were gaining their freedom.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=927}} 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=927}} After Thatcher resisted further [[European integration]] at a meeting at [[Strasbourg]] in November, Powell asked her parliamentary private secretary, [[Mark Lennox-Boyd]], to pass to her "my respectful congratulations on her stand&nbsp;... she both spoke for Britain and gave a lead to Europe—in the line of succession of [[Winston Churchill]] and [[William Pitt the Younger|William Pitt]]. 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=927}}

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 Britain for "self-determination" had given the newly independent nations of Eastern Europe a "beacon", adding that Britain 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&nbsp;... 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".{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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?"{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=928}} 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.&nbsp;... 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=928}} On the day of the [[1990 Mid Staffordshire by-election|Mid-Staffordshire by-election]], Powell said that the government should admit that the [[community charge]] was "a disaster" and that what mattered most to the people of Mid-Staffordshire was the question of who should govern Britain 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&nbsp;... 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.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=929}}

After [[Iraqi invasion of Kuwait|Iraq invaded Kuwait]] on 2 August 1990, Powell said that since Britain was not an ally of [[Kuwait]] in the "formal sense" and because the [[Balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]] in the Middle East had ceased to be a British concern after the end of the British Empire, Britain should not go to war. Powell said that "[[Saddam Hussein]] has a long way to go yet before his troops come storming up the beaches of [[Kent]] or [[Sussex]]". 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?&nbsp;... 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=933}}

When Thatcher was challenged by [[Michael Heseltine]] for the [[1990 Conservative Party leadership election|leadership of the Conservative Party]] 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 Thatcher's supporter [[Norman Tebbit]] 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 as she had adopted a line that would improve her party's popularity, it was foolish of them to force her out." 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&nbsp;... sooner or later those who aspire to govern&nbsp;... will have to listen".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=934}}

In December 1991 Powell said that "Whether [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=936}} During the [[1992 United Kingdom general election|1992 general election]] Powell spoke for [[Nicholas Budgen]] in his old seat of [[Wolverhampton South West]]. He praised Budgen for his opposition to the [[Maastricht Treaty]] and condemned the rest of the Conservative Party for supporting it.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=936–937}}

==Final years==
[[File:Enoch Powell 27 Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|upright|180px|Portrait of Enoch Powell by Allan Warren in 1987]]
In late 1992, aged 80, Powell was diagnosed with [[Parkinson's disease]]. 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 [[European Communities Act 1972 (UK)|European Communities Act 1972]] 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=939}}

In 1993, the 25-year 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 "[[Communalism (South Asia)|communalism]]", 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 [[Alan Sked]] of the [[Anti-Federalist League]] (the forerunner of the [[UK Independence Party]]) who was standing at the [[1993 Newbury by-election|Newbury by-election]]. Sked went on to lose his deposit at the by-election, polling only 601 votes (1.0 per cent). At [[Michael Portillo]]'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 [[John Major]] at the 1992 general election, which he believed to be a repudiation of her fight against [[European integration]] following the [[Bruges speech]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=939–40}}

On 16 May 1994 Powell spoke at the [[Bruges Group (United Kingdom)|Bruges Group]] and said Europe had "destroyed one Prime Minister and will destroy another Prime Minister yet" and demanded that powers surrendered to the [[European Court of Justice]] to be repatriated. In June 1994 he wrote an article for the ''Daily Mail'' in which 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=943}}

In his book ''The Evolution of the Gospel'', published in August 1994, Powell said he had arrived at the view that [[Jesus]] was not crucified but stoned to death by the [[Jews]]. Bishop [[John Austin Baker]] commented "He is a great classicist, but theology is out of his academic field."<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/profile-not-as-rigorous-as-he-thinks-enoch-powell-craggy-lonely-controversial-still-1377550.html |title=Profile: Not as rigorous as he thinks: Enoch Powell, craggy, lonely, controversial still|date=19 August 1994|work=[[The Independent]]|location= London|access-date=5 January 2016}}</ref>

Following Powell's death his 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".<ref>Richard Ritchie, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110427075129/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199802/ai_n8791279/ Enoch the unexpected]", ''The Spectator'', 14 February 1998.</ref>

In the 1990s Powell endorsed three UKIP candidates in parliamentary elections.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hope|first1=Christopher|title= Revealed: how Nigel Farage and Ukip begged for Enoch Powell's support|url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11291406/Revealed-how-Nigel-Farage-and-Ukip-begged-for-Enoch-Powells-support.html|access-date=13 December 2014|work=The Daily Telegraph |date=12 December 2014}}</ref> He also turned down two invitations to stand for the party in elections, citing retirement.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Ukip letters to Enoch Powell|url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11290715/The-Ukip-letters-to-Enoch-Powell.html|access-date=13 December 2014 |work=The Daily Telegraph|date=12 December 2014}}</ref>

In April 1995 he said in an interview that for the Conservatives "defeat [at the next election] 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 [[Cambridge Union]] and won.{{Sfn |Heffer|1998|pp=945–46}}

In July 1995 there was a [[1995 Conservative Party leadership election|leadership election for the Conservative Party]], 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, [[John Redwood]], 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".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=945–46}}

During the final years of his life, he managed occasional pieces of journalism and co-operated in a [[BBC]] documentary about his life in 1995 (''Odd Man Out'' was broadcast on 11 November). In April 1996 he wrote an article for the ''Daily Express'' in which he said: "Those who consented to the surrender made in 1972 will have to think again. Thinking again means that activity most unthinkable for politicians—unsaying what has been said. The surrender... we have made is not irrevocable. Parliament still has the power (thank God) to reclaim what has been surrendered by treaty. It is time we told the other European nations what we mean by being self-governed".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=948–49}} In October, he gave his last interview, to [[Matthew d'Ancona]] in the ''Sunday Telegraph''.

He said: "I have lived into an age in which my ideas are now part of common intuition, part of a common fashion. It has been a great experience, having given up so much to find that there is now this range of opinion in all classes, that an agreement with the EEC is totally incompatible with normal parliamentary government.  …The nation has returned to haunt us".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=949}} When Labour won the [[1997 United Kingdom general election|1997 general election]], Powell told his wife, Pamela Wilson, "They have voted to break up the United Kingdom." She rejoined the Conservative Party the next day, but he did not.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=950}} By then, Powell had been hospitalised several times as a result of multiple [[Falling (accident)|falls]].

==Death==
[[File:Enoch Powell's Grave, Warwick Cemetery - geograph.org.uk - 3576436.jpg|thumb|Powell's grave at Warwick Cemetery in [[Warwick]], Warwickshire]]
A few hours following Powell's final admission to [[King Edward VII's Hospital]] in London, he asked where his lunch was. On being told that he was being fed intravenously, he remarked, "I don't call that much of a lunch." These were his last recorded words.<ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16177506.hoves-tory-mp-martin-maddan-friends-spotlight/|title = Hove's Tory MP Martin Maddan and friends in the spotlight|date = 23 April 2018|accessdate = 28 June 2022|last = Pearce|first = Hayley|work = [[The Argus (Brighton)|The Argus]]}}</ref> He died there on 8 February 1998 at the age of 85.<ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/09/world/enoch-powell-british-rightist-dies-at-85.html|title = Enoch Powell, British Rightist, Dies at 85|page = A17|newspaper = [[The New York Times]]|last = Pace|first = Eric|date = 9 February 1998|accessdate = 28 June 2022|url-access = limited}}</ref> He was survived by his widow and two daughters. His study of the [[Gospel of John]] remained unfinished.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Dressed in his brigadier's uniform, Powell's body was buried in his regiment's plot in Warwick Cemetery, [[Warwickshire]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Enoch Powell in Warwick Cemetery|work=Our Warwickshire |url=https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/enoch-powell-warwick-cemetery}}</ref> ten days after a family funeral service at [[Westminster Abbey]] and public services at [[St Margaret's, Westminster]], and the [[Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick]].<ref name=funeral1>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Politicians say farewell to Enoch Powell |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/politics/57815.stm |work=BBC News |date=18 February 1998 |access-date=21 July 2015 }}</ref>

Following Powell's death many politicians, including his rivals, paid tribute to him. Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]] said, "However controversial his views, he was one of the great figures of 20th-century British politics, gifted with a brilliant mind. However much we disagreed with many of his views, there was no doubting the strength of his convictions or their sincerity, or his tenacity in pursuing them, regardless of his own political self-interest."<ref name=tribute1 /> Thatcher said, "There will never be anybody else so compelling as Enoch Powell. He was magnetic. Listening to his speeches was an unforgettable privilege. He was one of those rare people who made a difference and whose moral compass led us in the right direction."<ref name=tribute1>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/rivals-pay-tribute-to-enoch-powell-1143780.html|title=Rivals pay tribute to Enoch Powell|website=[[Independent.co.uk]]|year=1998}}</ref> Over 1,000 people attended Powell's funeral. During the ceremony he was hailed as a man of prophecy, political sacrifice and as a great parliamentarian.<ref name=funeral1 /> During the service [[Lord Biffen]] said that Powell's [[nationalism]] "certainly did not bear the stamp of racial superiority or [[xenophobia]]".<ref name=funeral1 /> Other mourners at the service included the socialist Labour MP [[Tony Benn]], who, despite criticising the Rivers of Blood speech, maintained a close relationship with Powell. Asked why he had attended the funeral, Benn responded: "he was my friend."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/14/share-your-tributes-to-tony-benn|title=Share your tributes to Tony Benn|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=14 March 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/old-order-mourns-enoch-powell-1145584.html|title = Old Order mourns Enoch Powell|website = [[Independent.co.uk]]|date = 22 October 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.channel4.com/news/by/michael-crick/blogs/ten-tony-benn|title=Ten things you may not have known about Tony Benn|date=14 March 2014}}</ref>

== Personal life ==
Powell spoke German, French, Italian, Modern Greek, and [[Hindi]]/[[Urdu]],<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=140}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Cosgrave|first=Patrick|author-link=Patrick Cosgrave|date=9 February 1998|title=Obituary: Enoch Powell|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html|website=[[The Independent]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615150933/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html|archive-date=15 June 2009|url-status=live|quote=He learnt Hindi and Urdu – achieving the status of interpreter in both languages.}}</ref> and had a reading knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Welsh.<ref name="auto">{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|pp=581–582}}</ref> Among classical languages, he knew [[Ancient Greek]], [[Latin]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[Aramaic]].<ref name="auto"/><ref>{{cite news|title=Enoch Powell: John Enoch Powell, political maverick, died on February 8th, aged 85|url=https://www.economist.com/obituary/1998/02/12/enoch-powell|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|date=12 February 1998|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230111032301/https://www.economist.com/obituary/1998/02/12/enoch-powell|archive-date=11 January 2023|url-status=live|quote=He added systematically to his store of languages, among them Hebrew, which he learnt at 70 to help his studies of the Bible.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Cosgrave|first=Patrick|author-link=Patrick Cosgrave|date=9 February 1998|title=Obituary: Enoch Powell|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html|website=[[The Independent]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615150933/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html|archive-date=15 June 2009|url-status=live|quote=His Aramaic, his Greek and his Hebrew all came into play here.}}</ref>

[[Canon (title)|Canon]] Eric James, a former Trinity College chaplain, said in a letter to ''[[The Times]]'' on 10 February 1998 that in his old age Powell said to him that he had been in love with a fellow male undergraduate at Cambridge (whom [[Michael Bloch]] believes was "probably Edward Curtis of [[Clare College]]") and that this infatuation had inspired love verses published in his ''First Poems''.{{sfn|Bloch|2015|p=210}} Following his appointment as Professor of Greek at the University of Sydney in 1937, he wrote to his parents that he was repelled by his female students, while feeling "an instant and instinctive affection" for young Australian males. This, he added, might be "deplored, but it cannot be altered", and it therefore had to be "endured – and (alas!) camouflaged." The letters are now in the [[Churchill College]] Archives.{{sfn|Bloch|2015|p=211}}

Powell became an [[atheist]] while in [[sixth form]] through his study of [[German philosophy]], particularly the works of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=10}} Despite this, he later became a devout member of the [[Church of England]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=130}} He subsequently became a church warden of [[St. Margaret's, Westminster]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}
[[File:Enoch Powell in garden Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|left|Powell in his garden in [[Belgravia]], London, in 1986]]
On 2 January 1952 the 39-year-old Powell married 26-year-old Margaret Pamela Wilson, a former colleague from the [[Conservative Central Office]]. Their first daughter, Susan, was born in January 1954 and their second daughter, Jennifer, in October 1956.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} In Robert Shepherd's biography of Powell, it is noted that General [[Walter Cawthorn]] "became almost a second father" to him.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=55}}

Powell was an [[anti-Stratfordian]] who firmly believed that [[William Shakespeare]] of [[Stratford-upon-Avon]] was not the writer of the plays and poems of Shakespeare. He appeared on an episode of [[Frontline (American TV program)|''Frontline'']], "The Shakespeare Mystery," 19 April 1989,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sim |first1=Kevin |title=The Shakespeare Mystery |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0891029/ |publisher=Frontline, Season 7, Episode 10, 19 April 1989 |access-date=17 November 2020}}</ref> in which he said, "My astonishment was to discover that these were the works of someone who'd 'been in the kitchen.' They are written by someone who has lived the life, who has been part of a life of politics and power, who knows what people feel when they are near to the centre of power. Near to the heat of the kitchen." He called the traditional biography a "Stratfordian fantasy."{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

In his younger years, Powell published four collections of poems: ''First Poems''; ''Casting Off''; ''Dancer's End''; and ''The Wedding Gift''. His ''Collected Poems'' appeared in 1990. As a young scholar he translated [[Herodotus]]' ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' and published many other works of classical scholarship. He also wrote a biography of [[Joseph Chamberlain]] in 1977. His political publications were often as critical of the Conservatives as they were of Labour, making fun of what he saw as [[logical fallacies]] in reasoning or action. His book ''Freedom & Reality'' contained many quotations from Labour party manifestos or by [[Harold Wilson]] that he regarded as nonsensical.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

In March 2015 ''The Independent'' reported that Powell was one of the MPs whose activities had been investigated as part of [[Operation Fernbridge]]. His name had been passed to police by [[Paul Butler (bishop)|Paul Butler]], the [[Bishop of Durham]], after allegations of Powell's involvement in historic child abuse in the Elm Guest House had been made by one individual in the 1980s to the then [[Bishop of Monmouth]], [[Dominic Walker (bishop)|Dominic Walker]]. The allegations referred purely to alleged membership of "satanic cults", the Church said. According to the police, no prominent person had ever been conclusively identified as having abused a child there.<ref>{{cite news |last=Milmo |first=Cahal |title=Tory MP Enoch Powell investigated as alleged member of Westminster paedophile network |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tory-mp-enoch-powell-investigated-as-alleged-member-of-westminster-paedophile-network-10142235.html|work=The Independent |date=30 March 2015}}</ref><ref group="nb">[[Simon Heffer]], who has published a biography of Powell, has described the allegation as a "monstrous lie" and criticised the [[Church of England]]'s actions in "putting this smear into the public domain", while the church stated that it had simply responded to an inquiry from the press and confirmed that allegations about Powell, which related to an alleged [[satanic cult]] rather than any criminal activity, had been passed to the police.</ref><ref>Gledhill, Ruth (30 March 2015). [http://www.christiantoday.com/article/enoch.powell.satanic.cult.claims.cofe.defends.decision.to.pass.name.to.police/51083.htm "Enoch Powell 'satanic cult' claims: CofE defends decision to pass name to police"]. ''Christian Today''. Retrieved 31 March 2015.</ref><ref group="nb">[[David Aaronovitch]] of ''[[The Times]]'' wrote in April 2015 that the 1980s claims about Powell originated from fabricated claims invented by a conman, [[Derry Mainwaring Knight]], whose false assertions had become known to the clergy, but had been unwittingly conveyed to the police in good faith.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Aaronovitch|first=David|url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/lets-expose-the-satanic-abuse-con-artists-6rfggnp8x5z|title=Let's expose the satanic abuse con artists|work=[[The Times]]|location=London|date=2 April 2015|access-date=8 October 2015}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

== Political beliefs ==
{{Conservatism UK}}
{{main|Powellism}}

Powell delivered his [[Rivers of Blood speech]] on 20 April 1968. A poll which was taken after the speech reported that 74 per cent of Britons agreed with Powell's opinions on mass immigration. In ''The Trial of Enoch Powell'', a [[Channel 4]] television programme broadcast in April 1998, on the thirtieth anniversary of his Rivers of Blood speech (and two months after his death), 64 per cent of the studio audience voted that Powell was not a racist. Some in the [[Church of England]], of which Powell was a member, took a different view. Upon Powell's death, [[Black people|black]] [[Barbados]]-born [[Wilfred Wood (bishop)|Wilfred Wood]], then [[Bishop of Croydon]], said "Enoch Powell gave a certificate of respectability to white racist views which otherwise decent people were ashamed to acknowledge".<ref>"Bishops criticise Abbey over Powell honour", ''The Irish Times'', 16 February 1998, p. 14.</ref>

Conservative commentator [[Bruce Anderson (columnist)|Bruce Anderson]] has claimed that the Rivers of Blood speech would have come as a complete surprise to anyone who had studied Powell's record: he had been a West Midlands MP for 18 years but had said hardly anything about immigration.<ref name="Anderson 2007">Bruce Anderson, "Enoch Powell made the Rivers of Blood speech out of ambition, not conviction", ''[[The Independent]]'', London, 5 November 2007.</ref> On this view, the speech was merely part of a badly miscalculated strategy to become party leader if Heath fell. Anderson adds that the speech had no effect on immigration, except to make it more difficult for the subject to be discussed rationally in polite society.<ref name="Anderson 2007" />

Powell's opponents claimed he was far-right, [[fascist]] and racist. His supporters claim that the first two charges clash with his voting record on most social issues, such as homosexual law reform (he was in fact a co-sponsor of a bill on this issue in May 1965 and opposed the [[capital punishment in the United Kingdom#Abolition|death penalty]], both reforms unpopular among Conservatives at the time; however, he kept a low profile to his stance on these non-party "issues of conscience").{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=318}} Powell voted against the reinstitution of the death penalty several times between 1969 and 1987.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

By the early 1960s, Powell was in support of the campaign for immigration controls.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=223–226}} The earliest and only statement from then by Powell on immigration was in August 1956, when, in Wolverhampton, Powell said that "a fundamental change in the law is necessary" in the UK's citizenship law. However, he explained that a change was not needed at that time but did not rule out the possibility of a future change.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=191}} In the late 1950s, when other Conservatives were advocating a campaign for immigration control following [[1958 Notting Hill race riots|race riots]], Powell declined to join them, remarking that it was no good discussing the details when the "real issue" of the citizenship laws had remained unchanged.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=191–192}} In November 1960, Powell became one of nine members of the ministerial committee which wanted to introduce controls of Commonwealth immigration; he submitted a letter in April 1961 which said "if we desire to limitations or conditions on the entry of coloured British subjects into this country" a change in the existing legal definition of a "British subject" was needed, since the [[British Nationality Act 1948]] considered all those from independent Commonwealth countries listed under Britain's nationality law to be British subjects.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=223–224}}

In February 1967 Powell wrote an article for the ''Daily Telegraph'' titled "Facing up to Britain's Race Problem" in which he wrote that, long before the immigrant population had reached 5% of the overall proportion of the United Kingdom, a "proportion would have filtered into the general population, mingled with it in occupation, residence, habits and intermarriage" compared to the other proportion which would be "more separated than now in habits, occupation and way of life".<ref>Enoch Powell, ''Still to Decide'', p. 295</ref>

Concerns raised about the effects of coloured immigration in communities in his constituency played a part in his commentary. In March 1968 the month before the "Rivers of Blood" speech, he made his first public references to them in a speech in [[Walsall]], when he described the concern of an anonymous constituent whose daughter was the only white child in her primary school class and suffered bullying from non-white pupils. When ''[[Wolverhampton Express and Star]]'' journalists failed to find the child or the class, the paper's editor and a then personal friend, Clement Jones, challenged him, stating Jones himself had similar anonymous complaints that were traced to members of the [[British National Front|National Front]] (NF). Powell would not accept the explanation and told Jones he had received "bags of supporting mail" as a result of the Walsall speech.<ref>{{cite news|title=My father and Enoch Powell|work=Shropshire Star|date=8 October 2016|page=3 (Weekend supplement)}} Edited article by Nicholas Jones on his father's dealings with Powell, originally published in book ''What Do We Mean By Local? The Rise, Fall – and possible rise again – of Local journalism'' (2013, Abramis).</ref>

During an interview with the ''[[Birmingham Post]]'', a fortnight after Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, he was asked whether or not he was a [[racialist]]. He replied:

{{blockquote|What I would take racialist to mean is a person who believes in the inherent inferiority of one race of mankind to another, and who acts and speaks in that belief. So the answer to your question of whether I am a racialist is 'No' – unless perhaps, in reverse. I regard many of the peoples in India as being superior in many respects – intellectually, for example, and in other respects – to Europeans. Perhaps that is over-reacting.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=364}}}}

Powell accepted an invitation to appear on [[David Frost]]'s evening television programme on 3 January 1969. Frost asked Powell whether or not he was a racialist, to which Powell replied:

{{blockquote|It depends on how you define the word "racialist". If you mean being conscious of the differences between men and nations, and from that, races, then we are all racialists. However, if you mean a man who despises a human being because he belongs to another race, or a man who believes that one race is inherently superior to another, then the answer is emphatically "No".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=504}}}}

During the 1970 election, Tony Benn declared in a speech that Powell's approach to immigration was "evil": "The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered over [[Dachau]] and [[Belsen]]." In response, when a television reporter told Powell at a meeting of Benn's comments, Powell snatched the microphone and replied: "All I will say is that for myself, in 1939 I voluntarily returned from Australia to this country, to serve as a private soldier against [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] and [[Nazism]]. I am the same man today."{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=395}} Similarly, Powell responded to student hecklers at a speech in Cardiff: "I hope those who shouted 'Fascist' and 'Nazi' are aware that before they were born I was fighting against Fascism and Nazism."{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=489}}

In November 1968 Powell also suggested that the problems that would be caused if there were a large influx of Germans or Russians into Britain "would be as serious – and in some respects more serious – than could follow from the introduction of a similar number of West Indies or Pakistanis".{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=365}}

Powell said his views were neither genetic nor eugenic and that he never arranged his fellow men on a merit according to their origins.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|pp=364–365}}

Powell said in a 1964 speech:

{{blockquote|I have and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origins.<ref>Letter from Enoch Powell, ''Wolverhampton Express and Star'', October 1964, quoted in [[Humphry Berkeley]], "Mr Powell: still Yesterday's Man", ''The Times'', London, 5 September 1972, p. 12.</ref>}}

In a speech in November 1968, he said:

{{blockquote|The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact he is a West Indian or an Asian still.{{sfn|Smithies|Fiddick|1969|p=77}}}}

In 1944, when Powell was visiting [[Poona]] with another member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, an Indian, [[Lieutenant Colonel (United Kingdom)|Lieutenant-Colonel]] (later [[Field Marshal (India)|Field Marshal]]) [[K. M. Cariappa]], he refused to stay at the Byculla Club once it became clear that Cariappa, as an Indian, would not be allowed to stay there.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=55}} Close friends also recall that Powell took great pleasure in speaking Urdu when dining at Indian restaurants.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=364}}

Nevertheless, Powell's nationalism and accusations of racialism sometimes trod a fine line. In 1996 the BBC journalist [[Michael Cockerell]] asked him about the language he used in the "Rivers of Blood" speech, arguing that it could be used by self-proclaimed racialists against non-whites. In defence of the language he used in the speech, Powell replied:

{{blockquote|What's wrong with racism? Racism is the basis of a nationality. Nations are, upon the whole, united by identity with one another, the self-identification of our citizens, and that's normally due to similarities which are regarded as racial differences.{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=365}}}}

Powell further went on to say that "it's not impossible but it's difficult, for a non-white person to be British."{{sfn|Shepherd|1996|p=366}}

[[Victoria Honeyman]], Lecturer in Politics at the [[University of Leeds]] in England, wrote of Powell's beliefs on immigration:

{{blockquote|Enoch Powell was, like other politicians such as [[Keith Joseph]], an intellectual in the true sense of the word. He would follow the logic of an intellectual argument to its conclusion, regardless of how unpalatable that conclusion was, and then present it and often expect others to appreciate his process.&nbsp;... Powell is usually viewed as being a racist, but that is too simplistic. Powell was interested in what he saw as being best for Britain.&nbsp;... While it is easy to label him a racist, if you view his argument as an intellectual argument, he simply delivered what he considered the reasoned conclusion to it. It was not a reflection on Indian and Pakistani people, only a comment on what immigration from these countries might do to Britain.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Remembrance and Appraisal of Enoch Powell|url=http://www.ibtimes.com/remembrance-appraisal-enoch-powell-290673|first=Palash R.|last=Ghosh|date=6 August 2011|website=International Business Times}}</ref>}}

Powell's speeches and television interviews throughout his political life displayed a suspicion towards "[[the Establishment]]" in general, and by the 1980s there was a regular expectation{{by whom|date=September 2025}} that he would make some sort of speech or act in a way designed to upset the government and ensure he would not be offered a [[life peer]]age (and thus be transferred to the [[House of Lords]]). Some{{who|date=September 2025}} believe he had no intention of accepting a peerage as long as Heath sat in the Commons (which he did until after Powell's death.) Powell had opposed the Life Peerages Act and felt it would be hypocritical to accept one himself since no prime minister had ever offered him a [[hereditary peer]]age.

== Legacy ==
Powell sat for the sculptor [[Alan Thornhill]] for a portrait<ref>{{Citation|url=http://alanthornhill.co.uk/sm_004.htm |title=portrait head of Enoch Powell |format=image of sculpture |publisher=Alan Thornhill |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719115306/http://www.alanthornhill.co.uk/sm_004.htm |archive-date=19 July 2008 }}</ref> in clay. The correspondence file relating to the Powell portrait bust is held as part of the Thornhill Papers (2006:56) in the archive<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=584 |title=HMI Archive |publisher=Henry Moore Foundation |location=UK |access-date=10 August 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112193428/http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=584 |archive-date=12 January 2009 }}</ref> of the [[Henry Moore Foundation]]'s [[Henry Moore Institute]] in [[Leeds]] and the terracotta remains in the collection of the artist. The English photographer [[Allan Warren]] produced many portraits of Powell.

There are 24 images of Powell in the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]] Collection including work by [[Alexander Bassano]]'s studios, [[Anne-Katrin Purkiss]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?firstRun=true&sText=purkiss&search=sa&LinkID=mp10637&page=1&rNo=7&role=art | title = Portrait NPG x29287; (John) Enoch Powell |publisher= National Portrait Gallery | location = UK |access-date=10 August 2009}}</ref> and a 1971 cartoon by [[Gerald Scarfe]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?LinkID=mp05680&page=1&rNo=1&role=sit |title= Portrait NPG 6475; (John) Enoch Powell |publisher= National Portrait Gallery | location = UK |access-date=10 August 2009}}</ref>

Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech was subject of the play ''What Shadows'' by Chris Hannan, staged in Birmingham from 27 October to 12 November 2016, with Powell portrayed by the Scottish actor [[Ian McDiarmid]] and Clem Jones by [[George Costigan]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Acting out: That famous speech set for the stage|work=Shropshire Star|date=8 October 2016|page=2 (Weekend supplement)}}</ref> Powell appears briefly as a character in [[James Graham (playwright)|James Graham]]'s 2021 play ''[[Best of Enemies (play)|Best of Enemies]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Walker |first1=Tim |last2=steveanglesey |date=2022-01-05 |title=Theatre Review: Best of Enemies is of debatable merit |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/theatre-review-james-graham-best-of-enemies/ |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=The New European |language=en-GB}}</ref>

In August 2002 Powell appeared 55th in the list of ''[[100 Greatest Britons]]'' of all time (voted for by the public in a BBC nationwide poll).<ref>{{cite news|work=The Guardian|title=The 100 greatest Britons: lots of pop, not so much circumstance|first=Matt|last=Wells|date=22 August 2002|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/aug/22/britishidentityandsociety.television|access-date=1 May 2012}}</ref>

[[Keir Starmer]]'s "[[Restoring Control over the Immigration System|Island of strangers]]" speech in 2025 received comparisons to Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech.<ref>{{cite web |author-last=Yadav |author-first=Niva |date=13 May 2025 |title=Why is Keir Starmer's speech being compared to Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech? |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-speech-enoch-powell-comparison-b1227558.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250513182648/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-speech-enoch-powell-comparison-b1227558.html |archive-date=13 May 2025 |access-date=13 May 2025 |work=[[Evening Standard]]}}</ref> The [[Prime Minister's Office (United Kingdom)|Prime Minister's Office]] rejected comparisons to Powell and defended use of the phrase, saying that Starmer was "using his own words to rightly both recognise the contribution migrants have made over generations and to make the point that uncontrolled migration has been too high".<ref>{{cite web |author-last=Walker |author-first=Peter |date=13 May 2025 |title=No 10 defends Starmer's language on immigration likened to Enoch Powell speech |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/13/no-10-defends-keir-starmer-language-immigration-speech-enoch-powell |access-date=13 May 2025 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> Starmer later said that using the phrase was a mistake, saying it "wasn't right. I'll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it".<ref>{{Cite web |title=The private trials of Keir Starmer |url=https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/keir-starmers-deep-regret-over-island-of-strangers-speech |access-date=2025-06-27 |website=The Observer |language=en}}</ref>

==Works==
* {{cite book|first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |first2=Harris J. |last2=Rendel |title= The Rendel Harris Papyri |year=1936 |publisher=The University Press | location=Cambridge |asin=B000WGT4XG}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=First Poems |year=1937 |publisher=Shakespeare Head Press |asin=B003U5HJCO}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=A Lexicon to Herodotus |year=1938 |publisher=The University Press | location=Cambridge |oclc=6513741 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ALEXICONTOHERODOTUS1938ByJ.ENOCHPOWELL/mode/2up }}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=The History of Herodotus |year=1939 |publisher=Coronet Books Inc |oclc=948821318}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Casting-off, and other poems |year=1939 |publisher=Basil Blackwell |asin=B0050ID6GW}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Herodotus, Book VIII| year=1939 |publisher=Pitt Press Series |asin=B000XCU7HQ}}
* {{cite book|first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |first2=Stephen |last2=J |title=Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda Yn Ol Llyfr Blegywryd |publisher=Gwasg Prifsgol Cymru |year=1942 }}
* {{cite book |editor-first1=Enoch |editor-last1=Powell |editor-first2=Henry Stuart |editor-last2=Jones |title=Thucydides Historiae Vol. I: Books I–IV 2/e |year=1963 |orig-year=1942 |publisher=Clarendon Press |oclc=871050 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/thucydidishistor0002thuc_t3d8 }}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Herodotus |year=1949 |publisher=Oxford |asin=B005INFMTI}}.
* {{cite book |first=Enoch |last=Powell |display-authors=etal|title=One Nation |year=1950 |publisher=Conservative Political Centre |asin=B001Y3CHZ8 }}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Dancer's End and The Wedding Gift |year=1951}}
* {{cite book|first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |first2=Iain Norman|last2=Macleod |title=The Social Services: needs and means |year=1952 |publisher=Conservative Political Centre |asin=B0014M19BM}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Change is our Ally |year=1954 |publisher=Conservative Political Centre |asin=B0000CIVQA}}
* {{cite book|first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |title=Biography of a Nation |orig-year=1955 |edition=second |year=1970 |author2-link=Angus Maude |first2=Angus |last2=Maude |place=London |isbn=0212983733}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Great Parliamentary Occasions |year=1960 |publisher=The Queen Anne Press |asin=B001P1VJEO}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Saving in a Free Society |url=https://archive.org/details/savinginfreesoci0000powe |url-access=registration |year=1960 |publisher=Institute of Economic Affairs by Hutchinson |asin = B0000CKQQO}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |editor-first=John |editor-last=Wood |title=A Nation not Afraid |year=1965 |publisher=Hodder & Stroughton |asin=B0000CMRLH}}
* {{cite book |first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Medicine and Politics: 1975 and After |year=1976 |orig-year=1966 |publisher=Pitman Medical |isbn=0272793779}}
* {{cite book|first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |title=The House of Lords in the Middle Ages |url=https://archive.org/details/houseoflordsinmi0000powe |url-access=registration |year=1968 |first2=Keith |last2=Wallis|isbn=9780297761051 }}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Freedom and Reality |orig-year=1969 |year=1999 |publisher=Kingswood |isbn=0716005417}}
* {{citation |first1=Enoch |last1=Powell |url=https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Freeman%201969_2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910094026/https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Freeman%201969_2.pdf |archive-date=2021-09-10 |url-status=live |title=A Housing Policy for Great Britain |work=[[The Freeman]] |volume=19 |number=3 |date=March 1969 |pages=171–175 |via=The Mises Institute}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Common Market: The Case Against| year=1971 |publisher=Elliot Right Way Books |isbn=071600559X}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Still to Decide |year=1972 |publisher=Elliot Right Way Books |isbn=0716005662}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=The Common Market: Re-negotiate or Come Out |year=1973 |publisher=Elliot Right Way Books |isbn=0716005859 |ref={{harvid|Powell|1973a}}}}
* {{cite book |first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=No Easy Answers |year=1973 |publisher=Sheldon Press |isbn=0859690016 |url=https://archive.org/details/noeasyanswers00powe |ref={{harvid|Powell|1973b}}}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Wrestling With the Angel |year=1977 |publisher=Sheldon Press |isbn=0859691276}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Joseph Chamberlain |year=1977 |publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |isbn=0500011850}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=A Nation or No Nation |year=1978 |editor-first=Richard |editor-last=Ritchie |place=London |isbn=0713415428}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Enoch Powell on 1992 |year=1989 |editor-first=Richard |editor-last=Ritchie |place=London |publisher=Anaya Publishers |isbn=1854700081}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Reflections of a Statesman: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell |year=1991 |editor-first=Rex |editor-last=Collings |place=London |publisher=Bellew Publishing Co Ltd |isbn=0947792880}}
* {{cite book|first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=Collected Poems |year=1990 |publisher=Bellew Publishing Co Ltd |isbn=0947792368}}
* {{cite book |first=Enoch |last=Powell |title=The Evolution of the Gospel |year=1994 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300054211 |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionofgospe00powe }}

==Elections contested==
'''UK Parliament elections'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Date of election !! Constituency !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Result
|-
| [[1947 Normanton by-election]] || [[Normanton (UK Parliament constituency)|Normanton]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 4,258 || 17.9 || Not elected
|-
| [[1950 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 20,239 || 46.0 || Elected
|-
| [[1951 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 23,660 || 53.6 || Elected
|-
| [[1955 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 25,318 || 60.0 || Elected
|-
| [[1959 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 25,696 || 63.9 || Elected
|-
| [[1964 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 21,736 || 57.4 || Elected
|-
| [[1966 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 21,466 || 59.1 || Elected
|-
| [[1970 United Kingdom general election]] || [[Wolverhampton South West]] || [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] || 26,220 || 64.3 || Elected
|-
| [[October 1974 United Kingdom general election]] || [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] || [[Ulster Unionist]] || 33,614 || 50.8 || Elected
|-
| [[1979 United Kingdom general election]] || [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] || [[Ulster Unionist]] || 32,254 || 50.0 || Elected
|-
| [[1983 United Kingdom general election]] || [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] || [[Ulster Unionist]] || 20,693 || 40.3 || Elected
|-
| [[1986 Northern Ireland by-elections]] || [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] || [[Ulster Unionist]] || 24,963 || 48.4 || Elected
|-
| [[1987 United Kingdom general election]] || [[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]] || [[Ulster Unionist]] || 25,848 || 45.7 || Not elected
|}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group="nb"}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book |last=Bernstein |first=George L. |title=The Myth Of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945 |year=2004 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=1844131025}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bloch |first=Michael |title=Closet Queens |year=2015 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=9781408704127}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Collings |editor-first=Rex |title=Reflections of a Statesman: The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell |place=London |publisher=Bellew |year=1991}}
* {{Cite book |last=Corthorn |first=Paul |title=Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2019 |isbn=9780198747147 |language=en |oclc=1083570370}}
* {{cite book |last=Craig |first=F. W. S. |author-link=F. W. S. Craig |title=British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 |orig-year=1969 |edition=3rd |year=1983 |publisher=Parliamentary Research Services |location=Chichester |isbn=090017806X}}
* {{cite book |author-link=Paul Foot (journalist) |first=Paul |last=Foot |title=The Rise of Enoch Powell |location=Harmondsworth |year=1969}}
* {{cite book |last=Heffer |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Heffer |title=[[Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell]] |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=1998 |location=London |isbn=9780297842866}}
* {{cite book |last=Howard |first=Greville |author-link=Greville Howard, Baron Howard of Rising |year=2014 |title=Enoch at 100: A re-evaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell |publisher=Biteback Publishing |isbn=9781849547420}}
* {{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Roy | author-link=Roy Lewis (writer) |title=Enoch Powell: Principle in Politics |date=1979 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |isbn=0304300721}}
* {{cite book |last=Murray |first=Douglas |title=The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Continuum |location=London |isbn=9781472942241}}
* {{cite book |last=Ostow |first=Robin |title=Ethnicity, structured inequality, and the state in Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Tl6AAAAMAAJ&q=%22In+general+do+you+agree+or+disagree+with+what+Mr.+Powell+said+in+his+speech |publisher=Lang |year=1991 |isbn=9783631437346}}
* {{cite book |last=Roth| first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Roth |title=Enoch Powell: Tory Tribune|publisher=TBS The Book Service Ltd |year=1970 |location=London |isbn=9780356031507 |url=https://archive.org/details/enochpowelltoryt0000roth}}
* {{cite book |last=Shepherd |first=Robert |title=Iain Macleod |year=1994 |publisher=Hutchinson |location=London |isbn=9780091785673}}
* {{cite book |last=Shepherd |first=Robert |title=Enoch Powell |year=1996 |publisher=Hutchinson |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/enochpowell0000shep |url-access=registration |isbn=0091792088}}
* {{cite book |last1=Smithies |first1=Bill |last2=Fiddick |first2=Peter |title=Enoch Powell on immigration |date=1969 |publisher=Sphere |location=London |isbn=9780722179468}}
* {{cite book |first=Tom |last=Stacey |title=Immigration and Enoch Powell |location=London |year=1970 |oclc=151226}}
* {{cite book |title=Dark Remedy: The Impact of Thalidomide and Its Revival As a Vital Medicine |first1=Trent D. |last1=Stephens |author2-link=Rock Brynner|first2=Rock |last2=Brynner |publisher=Basic Books |year=2001 |isbn=0738205907 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9IGyL1Cwy08C |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}

==Further reading==
* Clarke, Peter (7 March 2013). [https://archive.today/20210617121649/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n05/peter-clarke/i-am-a-classical-scholar-and-you-are-not "I am a classical scholar, and you are not."] ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 35, no. 5. pp.&nbsp;31–32. {{ISSN|0260-9592}}. Archived from [https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n05/peter-clarke/i-am-a-classical-scholar-and-you-are-not the original.]
* {{cite book |editor-last1=Esteves |editor-first1=Olivier |editor-last2=Porion |editor-first2=Stéphane |title=The Lives and Afterlives of Enoch Powell |location=London |publisher=Routledge |date=2019 |doi=10.4324/9780429441158}}
* {{cite book |last=Sandbrook |first=Dominic |title=Never Had It So Good |year=2005 |location=London |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=9780349115306}}
* {{cite book |last=Schofield |first=Camilla |title=Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain |date=2013 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=9781107007949}}
* {{cite book |last=Schoen |first=Douglas E. |author-link=Douglas Schoen |title=Enoch Powell and the Powellites |date=1977 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=0333198662}}
* {{cite news |author=Staff|title=Enoch Powell (obituary)|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=9 February 1998}}

== See also ==
* {{annotated link|Nigel Hastilow}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{Commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_P03.html#Powell_JE British Army Officers 1939–1945]
* {{Hansard-contribs | mr-enoch-powell | Enoch Powell }}
* {{NPG name}}
* {{Citation | url = https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips | title = Obituary | work = The Guardian | first=Mike | last=Phillips | date=7 February 2001 | location=London}}.
* {{Citation | url = https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/resources/1777 | title = The Papers of Enoch Powell | first = Enoch | last = Powell | publisher = [[Churchill Archives Centre]] | place = }} are accessible to the public.
* {{Citation | url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugD4W12S-cU | title = Radio Interview on Immigration | date = 5 September 2006 | publisher = BBC | place = UK}}: Powell interviewed shortly after his "[[Rivers of Blood]]" speech (3 min 38 s).
* {{Citation | url = http://www.david-griffiths.co.uk/enoch-powell/4581933375 | format = Official portrait | title = Enoch Powell | first = David | last = Griffiths | place = UK | access-date = 11 January 2014 | archive-date = 11 January 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140111133256/http://www.david-griffiths.co.uk/enoch-powell/4581933375 | url-status = dead }}
* {{Citation | url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-enoch-powell-1143867.html | title = Obituary: Enoch Powell | work = The Independent | first = Patrick | last = Cosgrave | date=9 February 1998 | access-date=30 October 2019 | location=London}}.
* [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80009826 Imperial War Museum Interview]
* [https://generals.dk/general/Powell/John_Enoch/Great_Britain.html Generals of World War II]

{{s-start}}
{{s-par|uk}}
{{s-new|constituency}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for<br />[[Wolverhampton South West]]|years=[[1950 United Kingdom general election|1950]] – [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|1974]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Nick Budgen]]}}
|-
{{s-bef|before=[[Lawrence Orr]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for<br />[[South Down (UK Parliament constituency)|South Down]]|years=[[October 1974 United Kingdom general election|1974]]–[[1987 United Kingdom general election|1987]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Eddie McGrady]]}}
|-
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor|Henry Brooke]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Financial Secretary to the Treasury]]|years=1957–1958}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Jack Simon, Baron Simon of Glaisdale|Jack Simon]]}}
|-
{{s-bef|before=[[Derek Walker-Smith]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Secretary of State for Health|Minister of Health]]|years=1960–1963}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Anthony Barber]]}}
|-
{{s-bef|before=[[Peter Thorneycroft]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Shadow Secretary of State for Defence]]|years=1965–1968}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Reginald Maudling]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Enoch Powell}}
{{Secretary of State for Health}}
{{Shadow Defence Secretaries}}
{{1965 Conservative Party leadership election}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Conservatism|Politics|United Kingdom}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Enoch}}
[[Category:Enoch Powell| ]]
[[Category:1912 births]]
[[Category:1998 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English poets]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Anti-American sentiment in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:British Army brigadiers of World War II]]
[[Category:British Army General List officers]]
[[Category:British former atheists and agnostics]]
[[Category:Burials in Warwickshire]]
[[Category:Classical scholars of the University of Sydney]]
[[Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies]]
[[Category:Converts to Anglicanism from atheism or agnosticism]]
[[Category:Critics of multiculturalism]]
[[Category:Deaths from Parkinson's disease in England]]
[[Category:English Anglicans]]
[[Category:English classical scholars]]
[[Category:English Eurosceptics]]
[[Category:English nationalists]]
[[Category:English people of Welsh descent]]
[[Category:English political writers]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley]]
[[Category:History of mental health in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Intelligence Corps officers]]
[[Category:Members of the Mont Pelerin Society]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Down constituencies (since 1922)]]
[[Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Birmingham, West Midlands]]
[[Category:Ministers in the Eden government, 1955–1957]]
[[Category:Ministers in the Macmillan and Douglas-Home governments, 1957–1964]]
[[Category:People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham]]
[[Category:Politicians from Wolverhampton]]
[[Category:Race-related controversies in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers soldiers]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1950–1951]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1951–1955]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1955–1959]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1959–1964]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1964–1966]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1966–1970]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1970–1974]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1974–1979]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1979–1983]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1983–1987]]
[[Category:Ulster Unionist Party MPs]]
[[Category:Welsh-speaking politicians]]
[[Category:Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands]]
[[Category:Writers from London]]