Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech: Fifty Years On

Fifty years ago, Enoch Powell made what still is one of the most notorious speeches in postwar British politics. Its tone was shocking for its use of inflammatory references to ethnic minority immigrants. Immigration continues to be divisive and references to it by politicians inevitably lead to comparisons with Powell. The aim of the collection is to examine Powell's speech from a number of perspectives, exploring how it was viewed both by contemporaries and in the light of subsequent developments. The objective of this article is to examine Powell's motivations, impact and legacy.     

‘Strangers in their own land’: Powellism’s policy impact

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Solomos provides an account of the impact of Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech on policy agendas about race relations and immigration. He argues that Powell’s intervention helped to shape policy frames around race and immigration in its immediate aftermath and beyond. By exploring the impact of the speech on the policy climate, his paper argues that perhaps the most important aspect of the speech is the way it helped to shape the policy agendas of both the Conservative and Labour parties, even as Powell himself was marginalized from mainstream politics. He concludes by suggesting that Powell’s intervention links up with contemporary debates and preoccupations about race and immigration.     

‘Rivers of Blood’ and Britain's Far Right

This article examines the impact of Enoch Powell's speech on Britain's numerous right‐wing fringe groups and their response—in particular, that of the National Front, who benefitted the most from Powell's intervention on race and for a brief moment became Britain's fourth political party. It begins by looking at the growth of post‐World War II British fascism and how its emphasis switched from anti‐Semitism to anti‐colonial immigration. Throughout the piece, the relationship between Britain's far right and the Conservative party is examined to show how Powell inadvertently blurred the lines between the two. The article concludes with the 1979 general election victory of Margaret Thatcher who, by adopting Powellite themes but in more measured tones, destroyed the National Front's dream of an electoral breakthrough.     

Enoch Powell and the Conservative Party: Reflections on an Ambiguous Legacy

This article examines Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in relation to the Conservative party. Powell's speech created an additional challenge to a Conservative party already weakened by the loss of the 1964 and 1966 elections and by the failure of the newly elected leader, Edward Heath, to impress his authority decisively on the party. Powell had some parliamentary support but his real following was concentrated in the Conservative grass roots. Powell lost the support of the liberal‐minded Shadow Cabinet; but after 1968 the Conservatives nevertheless moved to the right on the issue, especially after Mrs. Thatcher became leader in 1975. His speech has cast a long shadow as the party has sought to modernise in more recent times and to appeal to a more racially diverse electorate.     

In Memoriam: C. C. Aronsfeld (1910–2002)

ABSTRACT

Enoch Powell's ‘rivers of blood’ speech, delivered forty years ago, in April 1968, had a significant impact on British politics. Commentators are divided between those who have defended Powell's remarks and those who have condemned them. Hillman evaluates the responses, and reassesses the speech. He focuses on five key issues: Powell's motives; whether the speech was racist and/or racialist; the relationship between the speech and Conservative Party policies; Powell's electoral impact; and his forecasts with regard to numbers of people with minority ethnic backgrounds within the population.     

‘Strangers in their own Country’: Epideictic Rhetoric and Communal Definition in Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech

This article treats Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech as an example of the epideictic rhetoric of blame and exclusion. Drawing on a framework proposed by Celeste Michelle Condit, the analysis explores the functions of the address for the speaker and for the audience. Of particular concern are Powell's self‐presentation as a statesman and prophet; his account of the impact and consequences of unrestricted immigration; and his portrayal of a community where ordinary, decent English people were being displaced and victimised by Commonwealth immigrants—a process in which he claimed the authorities were complicit. For the audience, the speech gave public expression to their concerns about immigration, though Powell's predictions of a dystopian future also aroused sentiments of anger and foreboding. Despite the controversy that ensued, the impact of ‘Rivers of Blood’ was far‐reaching, and its influence is still apparent in contemporary debates over immigration.     

The nation under threat: secularist,racial and populist nativism in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Right-wing discourses and issues of belonging and collective identity in Europe’s political and public spheres are often analysed in terms of Islamophobia, racism and populism. While acknowledging the value of these concepts, Ke?i? and Duyvendak argue that these discourses can be better understood through the logic of nativism. Their article opens with a conceptual clarification of nativism, which they define as an intense opposition to an internal minority that is seen as a threat to the nation due to its ‘foreignness’. This is followed by the analysis of nativism’s three subtypes: secularist nativism, problematizing particularly Islam and Muslims; racial nativism, problematizing black minorities; and populist nativism, problematizing ‘native’ elites. The authors show that the logic of nativism offers the advantages of both analytical precision and scope. The article focuses on the Dutch case as a specific illustration of a broader European trend.     

The paths to citizenship: a critical examination of immigration policy in Britain since 2001

ABSTRACT

McGhee explores the Labour government's attempts to manage the challenges and protect against the ‘risks’ associated with a particular group of migrants to Britain: permanent immigrants. He examines how Gordon Brown conceives of his three-stage proposals for ‘earned’ British citizenship working with the wider managed migration strategy introduced by Tony Blair and Charles Clarke. At the same time, McGhee contextualizes the earned British citizenship proposals within the recent immigration policies and citizenship/integration strategies introduced by David Blunkett when Home Secretary. If the episodes of social disorder involving the second generation of settled immigrant communities in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001 were the events that triggered Blunkett's new integration/citizenship strategies, including the introduction of English classes and citizenship lessons for would-be citizens, then the 7/7 attacks by so-called ‘home-grown’ extremists were the events that influenced the emergence of what will be described here as the institutional racialization associated with Brown's recommendations. McGhee also explores the shift from Blunkett's model of civic assimilation, with its Cantle-esque emphasis on participation, to the Brown model of civic nationalism, with its post-7/7-fuelled emphasis on loyalty, shared values and responsibilities.     

One Nation and the Australian far right

One Nation, the Australian anti-immigration political party, was not created by, nor has it ever been controlled by, organized racist groups, but it has had extensive, although mostly informal, ties with them. These have ranged from the promotion of One Nation by racist groups and their leaders to some of their members holding positions within the party. One Nation has never taken action against the involvement in the party of racist groups, both because it needed the support of those groups in establishing the party and because of a convergence of interests. Ultimately, however, these ties have played a major role in the destabilization of One Nation.     

The perils of empire: nationhood and citizenship in Portugal

After the demise of the Portuguese empire and even more after joining the European Union, the Portuguese state redefined the borders of national belonging. The shift was one from a multi-continental nation, which included parts of Africa, to a more restricted definition of nationhood, one that stressed Portugal's connection to Europe and thus defined belonging by descent. This article, based on research conducted in Lisbon, Portugal in 2003, discusses the impact of this shift on Portuguese citizens of ethnically diverse backgrounds. The Portuguese state, media, academia, and civil society are all involved in constructing, disseminating, and hence consolidating a notion of nationhood that treats ethnically diverse minorities as foreigners, placing them outside the national community. Not producing or disseminating information on ethnic minorities, the Portuguese academia, media, and the state are all actively involved in reproducing a process that perpetuates exclusion and obstructs the construction of political alliances to confront widespread discrimination.     

‘Enoch Powell Speaks for Britain’: The Press,the Public and the Speech

This article explores popular reactions to Enoch Powell's speech in Birmingham on 20 April 1968. It describes the protests by sympathetic workers, such as the Smithfield meat porters, and the responses of the press, both nationally and in the West Midlands. It considers the speech's impact on immigrants themselves and it makes the case that Powell's real significance was as an early champion of a particular kind of anti‐Establishment populism, which has now become a very familiar feature of our political landscape.     

Techno-cultural opportunities: the anti-immigration movement in the Finnish mediascape

ABSTRACT

Horsti's article analyses how transformations in the media environment shaped the political success of the anti-immigration movement in Finland from 2003 to 2013. The qualitative textual analysis of blogs and mainstream media debates that relate to racism and the national populist Finns Party demonstrates how changes in the mediascape in general and in new media technology in particular have provided opportunities for the emerging anti-immigration movement. These changes facilitated the earlier development of the Finns Party but the fragmentation of online space later hindered the internal coherence of the movement and its integration into the populist party political family. In order to regain unity, the Finns Party performed the public scapegoating of individuals for racist speech, thus distancing itself from racism. Horsti shows that, rather than being isolated and marginal, the anti-immigration movement and the ‘uncivil’ public sphere overlap with traditional politics and the mainstream media.     

When a pariah party exploits its demonised status: the 2019 Finnish general election

Abstract

The governing Centre and Conservative parties played the ‘economy’ card – we’ve got Finland ‘back into shape’; the green parties, the Greens and Left Alliance, played the ‘climate change’ card, demanding action to go with the talk; the Social Democrats played the ‘caring’ card and the need for a Finland that cares for the elderly, the low-paid and young persons; the Finns Party in contrast played the ‘no one likes us, we don’t care’ card, seeking to exploit its pariah status for electoral gain. The adoption of a siege mentality strategy, designed to capitalise on its ostracised position, served to mobilise protest support and the Finns Party came within a whisker of beating the Social Democrats into second place. The Social Democrats then turned the clock back and put together the type of left?centre (‘red mud’) coalition that had characterised Finnish governments for half a century from the mid-1930s onwards.     

“Are You Thinking What We're Thinking?” Immigration,Multiculturalism and the Disavowal of Racism in the Run-up to the 2005 British General Election

The overt expression of racist discourse in the public realm is today—even in the case of far-right organizations like the British National Party—avoided at all costs. Yet approaches by competing political parties to the “populist” issue of asylum/immigration in the months preceding the 2005 General Election were clearly informed by negative ideas of racial difference.

This article sets out to describe the conceptual logic and rhetorical structures of political discourses of cultural pluralism underwritten by the spectre of racism. This “official multiculturalism” is in large part shared by mainstream political parties and national news media, and is predicated on the self-conscious disavowal of racism and racist intent, while simultaneously serving to attack or problematize the existence or behaviour of certain racialized groups, both within and without the nation.

I argue that such interventions increasingly circulate around definitions of legitimate cultural citizenship; that is, on ideas of civil society predicated on normative models of belonging to multicultural Britain. I will consider how the electoral campaigns of both Labour and Conservative parties were carefully constructed with a view to their reporting in the news media, and the extent to which such discourses of (multi)cultural citizenship publicly disavow—yet remain strongly marked by—exclusionary concepts of racialized difference.     

The EU,UKIP and the Politics of Immigration in Britain

Immigration politics in Britain have been transformed by high levels of immigration, the effects of EU free movement, strong anti‐immigration sentiment and UKIP's rise. All are compounded by a more general discontent with politics and politicians. In face of claims that something must be done, politicians seek tougher controls on immigration and free movement, but these may be difficult to attain because of entanglement with EU rules, while failure to achieve stated objectives can further compound the disconnect that fuels support for UKIP.     

Beyond left and right: the eclectic populism of the Five Star Movement

Abstract

Born in 2009, the Five Star Movement (FSM) has been one of the most electorally successful European populist parties since 2013. While its classification as a populist party is unanimously accepted, some have considered it close to left-libertarian positions, others as an anti-immigrant far right party, and still others have simply deemed it as unclassifiable. This article sets out to shed light on this question, using the official documents issued by the party since 2009, posts retrieved from Grillo’s blog during three electoral campaigns, and the opinions of the party’s supporters as expressed in three surveys in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Although displaying a clear anti-establishment identity, in economic terms it presents left-of-centre positions inconsistently mixed with more conservative proposals, while on the issues of citizenship and immigration, it has an elusive positioning, mixing national securitisation and international humanitarianism. The conclusions highlight the eclectic nature of FSM’s populism.     

The British General Election of 2015 and the Rise of the Meritocracy

Many on the left hoped that the 2015 general election in Britain would prove a social democratic moment. Instead, it proved a nationalist moment, since the only parties radically to increase their vote were UKIP and the SNP. This mirrored trends on the Continent, where nationalist parties on the right and the left have been the beneficiaries of the financial collapse of 2008. These parties exploit a new social cleavage between those who benefit from globalisation and those left behind. The new parties exploit issues of identity rather than economics, and these issues—whether Britain remains in the European Union, whether mass immigration continues and whether Scotland remains in the United Kingdom—are likely to dominate the 2015 parliament.     

Liberal nationalism,immigration, and the problem of multiple national identities

ABSTRACT

Critics and defenders of liberal nationalism often debate whether the nation-state is able to accommodate cultural and political pluralism, as it necessarily aspires for congruence between state and nation. In this article, I argue that both sides of the debate have neglected a second homogenising assumption of nationalism. Even if it is possible for the nation-building state to accommodate multiple political and cultural communities, it is not obvious that is possible or desirable for it to accommodate individuals belonging to more than one nation. With the rise of international migration, and the growing number of multinational individuals, this flaw is a serious one. I advance an internal critique of liberal nationalism to demonstrate that, from within its own logic, this theory must either reject multiple national identities, or accommodate them at the cost of the normative justifications of nationalism it provides. By analysing David Miller’s influential analysis of national identity in divided societies, I demonstrate how this framework is unable to support an accepting attitude towards multiple national identities.     

The West Midlands and Powell's Birmingham Speech

This article examines how the changing political debate in West Midlands’ constituencies influenced Powell's thinking, and how the area reacted to his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It looks at local perceptions of Commonwealth immigration in the West Midlands. It contrasts largely tolerant Wolverhampton with attitudes in nearby Smethwick; here a small number of race propagandists shaped local feeling through the columns of the Smethwick Telephone. The article considers their campaign, and the notorious victory of the hardliner Peter Griffiths in the 1964 general election. Powell and allies learnt there was electoral mileage in the ‘race card’, then campaigning on the issue. The article details the strength of subsequent local support after his Midlands Hotel speech, a loyalty only fortified in response to the execration of a horrified metropolitan elite and lasting until his defection from the Conservative party in 1974.     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.