To What Extent Can the Thinking of Enoch Powell Be Considered ‘consistent’?

To What Extent can the Thinking of Enoch Powell be Considered ‘Consistent’?

John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP (1950–74), Ulster Unionist Party MP (1974–1987), and Minister of Health (1960–63). He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech against immigration. For much of his time as a prominent politician, he was a highly controversial figure whom attracted much publicity, and it has been said that despite his somewhat marginal success in domestic politics, ‘he was the first senior politician to offer a serious intellectual challenge to the paradigm of progressive Conservatism in the post-war period’ (Garnett & Hickson, 2009: 57).

Difficulties are faced, however, in any attempt to group Powell’s political thought into a reasonable form of ideology. Powell can be quoted as saying ‘I have said before... and I say again now: I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory’ (Powell, 1978: 101). Thus, it is clear to see that in Powell’s eyes he was indeed firmly ascribed to the Conservative tradition. However, due to the two main reasons set forth by Garnett & Hickson (2009), discussing the political thought of Powell is not as straightforward as simply branding him a ‘Tory’. The first of these reasons is the sheer number of political issues he addressed himself to (Garnet & Hickson, 2009), many of which were from somewhat contradictory viewpoints. The second problem is the fact that ‘he has been analysed so exhaustively by a number of biographers’ which creates a problem, as ‘first, they tend not to concentrate on his intellectual development, except as part of a wider perspective and secondly they all tend to be written from a strongly sympathetic or highly critical view of Powell’ (Garnett & Hickson, 2009: 58).

Thus, before the consistency of Powell’s political thinking can be analysed, we must first seek to determine exactly what his political ideals were. In order to achieve an outline of Powell’s political thought, we must examine his own writings, the writings of others and the policy choices he made during his career in politics. Due to the aforementioned difficulties faced in ascertaining Powell’s ideological beliefs, care must be taken to analyse only the evidenced aspects of his thought, with little attention paid to speculation on the part of either a sympathetic or overly critical author. Also, the more controversial aspects of Powell’s career must be analysed only insofar as such an analysis provides for a better understanding of Powell’s wider ideology.

Powell’s political career began in 1950 when he became Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West. He was then appointed as a junior minister and subsequently became Financial Secretary to the Treasury,