Guardian trying to portray Enoch Powell and his supporters as 'racists'

We are obsessed with the unity of the UK, are we not? With the independence of Scotland and Ulster becoming part of Eire. Powell argued that the devolution policies introduced by the government of his day, would lead to a weakening of the ties between the countries in the United Kingdom. He said these polices were deeply foolish as they It would unleash forces that break the nation state up. It is still too early to say whether that will happen, but can anyone confidently assert that he was wrong?

He straight-up said "In fifteen or twenty years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"

He straight-up said "In fifteen or twenty years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"

I'd say in Northern Ireland he was quite clearly wrong. Post-1998 devolution there has had the opposite effect - it has reconciled the bulk of Northern Irish Catholics to being part of the UK, and Dublin has abandoned their constitutional irredentist claims on the North as part of the same deal.

In Wales support for independence was negligible before devolution, and it still is now.

The only area where you could really argue he had a point was Scotland, and even there it's more complicated than that. Support for independence had already been increasing before 1997, at a very gradual rate since the late 1970s (possibly before that too, but we don't have polling data going back that far). Neither devolution, nor the SNP entering government in 2007, noticeably accelerated that trend - what did was the referendum campaign.

He straight-up said "In fifteen or twenty years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"

Enoch Powell has been proven right by history.

Powell’s speech was a touchstone for racists and the far right, and is still celebrated by the racist right of today, who say “Enoch was right”.....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/19/the-real-lesson-of-enoch-powell-rivers-of-blood-speech

Do you actually think he was a racist? Or at least his speech 'Rivers of Blood' as racist?

You should read the entire speech, not just the cherry picked bits. Those weren't actually Powell's own words, he was quoting what one of his Wolverhampton consitituents had said to him. He was trying to highlight the level of discontent among the majority of the native population, towards mass-immigration, he was not suggesting that blacks would literally be in charge of the country within 15 - 20 years.

Powell was right in a great many of his predictions. We have seen a steady rise in interethnic tensions in the following decades. There have been numerous race riots and crime increases in the areas that have seen heavy non-white immigration. Immigrants and their descendents do increasingly (sometimes disproportionately) possess influence over the our government, media, public institutions, even the British native culture, customs and traditions.

In other ways he perhaps underestimated the negative impacts. I don't think he saw the dangers radical Islam would eventually present to us. And I certainly don't think in a million years he could have forseen that thousands of vulnerable, young, white girls in multiple towns and cities across the country over several decades, would be groomed, molested, drugged, gang raped, kidknapped, tortured, prostituted and trafficked on an industrial scale by gangs of predominately Pakistani men.

I don't care what ******** economic arguments people wish to make in favour of the immigration and multiculturalism Powell opposed. The social impacts have been overwhelmingly negative, and I don't see how any sensible person can say otherwise.

Enoch Powell was right, and he was a damn finer calibre of politician than any of the absolute clowns we have to endure in parliament today.

You're exaggerating the effects.

Of course you dont care about the economy. that requires intelligence.

Am I? Where specifically am I exaggerating?



Ah, here we go with the snide insults. Usually it's a pretty clear sign that someone doesn't actually have any argument....

I didn't say I don't care about the economy, I said I don't care about the economic arguments in favour of mass immigration because I think the social effects are far, far more important, and far too many don't consider them at all, especially at the corporate and political level. They seem to view all humans, not as a diverse patchwork of unique collectives resulting from tens of thousands of years worth of evolutionary and social development, but as nothing more than individual, interchangeable economic units, who can just be shuffled around like battery hens.

And if Powell was so right over race relations, isn't it bloody odd that he had nothing at all to say about radical Islam?

Powell’s speech was a touchstone for racists and the far right, and is still celebrated by the racist right of today, who say “Enoch was right”.....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/19/the-real-lesson-of-enoch-powell-rivers-of-blood-speech

Do you actually think he was a racist? Or at least his speech 'Rivers of Blood' as racist?

Firstly, Islamic immigration wasn't really much of a thing back then.

There were three times as many Muslims in Britain as Sikhs but it was the Sikhs whom Powell singled out in his speech.

However saying "Powell was right" means you are saying that Powell accurately predicted the future. One cannot excuse a fortune teller who gets it wrong due to unexpected events.

Powell was not right regarding West Indians, Sikhs or Muslims. What he predicted, has not come to pass. Other events to which he made no reference have occurred,

Powell wasn't only wrong about immigration.

He was wrong about Ulster and would have brought about a shooting war with the South. Powell opposed the principle that the NI remained in the UK only by consent of the majority of the people of NI. His view was that the UK should retain NI even if a majority of people wanted a United Ireland.

He was wrong about America and would have undermined the UK in the Cold War.

As his boss Peter Thorneycroft who resigned with him, later admitted, Powell was even wrong in timing to resign over public spending.

Powell's own political opinions were a tortuous mix of inconsistencies which he regarded as logic.

At various times he denied he was racist; challenged his questioners to define racism; and alternativelyargued that differentiation by race was natural.

If you read what he called the Birmingham Speech including the passages that are not frequently quoted, it is clear that he was racist by any reasonable definition of the term.

The point is that, it is what contemporaries also thought. William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times, called him out on the issue of racism, the day after the speech was given.

The definition of racism is itself torturous. To some it means wishing someone harm on account of his race. To some it means observing negative characteristics of some races. To some it means observing that races have any distinct characteristics. To some it means observing that races exist at all. Silicon Valley, where Asians and Jews are massively overrepresented, is racist and the problem is whites because they are somewhat less underrepresented than blacks. The NBA, which is 74.4% black, is not racist.

The charge of racism is so powerful that it demands some response yet it is almost impossible to know what the charge actually means in enough detail to factually rebut it.

There are much more challenged and nuanced situations than Powell. Powell wished to ground public policy decisions explicitly on the basis of race. That is why whatever reasonable definition of racism one adopts, Powell meets it.