John Enoch Powell, (1912 – 1998) was an English politician, linguist, writer, academic, soldier, poet and was a Conservative MP between 1950 and 1974. He held strong and distinctive views on matters such as immigration, national identity, economic policy, and the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union. Remembered for his controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968 in opposition to mass Commonwealth immigration to Britain, resulting to his sacking from the Shadow Cabinet, Powell is the starting point to the 2008 documentary.
Conservative: Enoch Powell
The central issue the speech aimed to tackle was not immigration but rather the introduction by the Labour Government of the Race Relations Act 1968, which Powell found absurd. The Act would disallow racial discrimination in certain areas of British life, particularly housing, where many local authorities refused to provide houses for immigrant families until they had lived in the country for a certain number of years.
Last year, award winning journalist, Rageh Omarr of Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary programme examined how immigration has affected Britain over the years. Rageh explored whether the visions of 40 years ago have any basis in the present reality.
Omaar concluded that resentment against immigrants are voiced by a much larger population. Political response has followed this broader and more widespread concern. Britain is more open about immigration than it was prepared to be in Powell’s day.
Is immigration today the cause of gang fights, social fragmentation, racism, Islamophobia, loss of the British identity, economic crisis, mass unemployment?
Is immigration not the cause of cultural exchange, world knowledge, promotion of global prosperity, opportunity, diversity, modernity?
Watch the extract of the 3 part documentary below.
I remember this documentary!! Well written, girl.
Comment by Tammika — April 19, 2009 @ 9:31 pm