Enoch Powell

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. When this tag was added, its readable prose size was 110 kB (18000 words) words. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (January 2025) The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Enoch Powell" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. Please help summarise the quotations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or excerpts to Wikisource. (December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article is missing information about the legacy of Enoch Powell in modern Britain. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Brigadier The Right Honourable Enoch Powell MBE
1987 portrait
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In office 7 July 1965 – 21 April 1968
Leader	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Peter Thorneycroft
Succeeded by	Reginald Maudling
Minister of Health
In office 27 July 1960 – 18 October 1963
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Derek Walker-Smith
Succeeded by	Anthony Barber
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office 14 January 1957 – 15 January 1958
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Henry Brooke
Succeeded by	Jack Simon
Parliamentary offices Member of Parliament for South Down In office 10 October 1974 – 18 May 1987 Preceded by Lawrence Orr Succeeded by Eddie McGrady Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West In office 23 February 1950 – 8 February 1974 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Nicholas Budgen
Personal details
Born	John Enoch Powell (1912-06-16)16 June 1912 Birmingham, England
Died	8 February 1998(1998-02-08) (aged 85) London, England
Resting place	Warwick Cemetery, Warwick, England
Political party	Conservative (1947–1974) Ulster Unionist (1974–1987)
Spouse	Pamela Wilson ​ (m. 1952)​
Children	2
Education	Trinity College, Cambridge School of Oriental Studies
Military service
Branch	British Army
Service years	1939–1945
Rank	Brigadier
Unit	Royal Warwickshire Regiment General Service Corps Intelligence Corps
Conflicts	Second World War North African campaign British India
Awards	Member of the Order of the British Empire (1943)

Part of a series on
Conservatism
Variants Authoritarian Corporatist Cultural Fiscal Green Liberal Libertarian Moderate National Paternalistic Populist Pragmatic Progressive Reactionary Religious Social Traditionalist Ultra
Principles Ancestral worship Authority Traditional Balance of power Class collaboration Collective identity Cultural heritage Cultural values Culture of life Pro-Life Discipline Duty Elitism Aristocracy Meritocracy Noblesse oblige Ethical order Familialism Family as a state model Family values Fundamentalism Gender roles Complementarianism Essentialism Historism Honour Imperialism Law and order Loyalty Maternalism Monarchism Royalism Moral absolutism Natalism Nationalism Natural law Norms Customs Mores Ordered liberty Organicism Organised religion Orthodoxy Patriotism Peace through strength  Property rights Public morality Rule of law Social hierarchy Social institutions Social order Sovereignty State religion Stewardship Subsidiarity Tradition
Intellectuals Johnson Hume Burke More Maistre Bonald Chateaubriand Czartoryski Coleridge Karamzin Savigny Carlyle Ranke Newman Tocqueville Dostoevsky Taine Le Bon Nordau Belloc Iorga Chesterton Spengler Jabotinsky Ilyin Savarkar Schmitt Eliot Mannheim Jünger Evola Strauss Röpke Gadamer Freyre Voegelin Oakeshott Burnham Lefebvre Qutb Kuehnelt-Leddihn Gómez Dávila Kirk Solzhenitsyn Koselleck Mishima Buckley Sowell Mansfield Scruton Hoppe Dugin Peterson
Politicians Adams Pitt Canning Metternich Disraeli Bismarck Salisbury Dmowski Mannerheim Baldwin Maurras Horthy Metaxas Churchill Adenauer De Gasperi Chiang Salazar De Gaulle Dollfuss Franco Khomeini Reagan Powell Pinochet Marcos Park Smith Reza Shah Suharto Lee Zia Vajpayee Thatcher Kohl Fujimori Bush Trump Kaczyński Netanyahu Modi Putin Abe Bolsonaro Orbán Meloni
Religion Christian democracy Christian right Confucianism Hindutva Islamism Jewish conservatism Religious Zionism Theravada Buddhism Traditionalist Catholicism Integralism Ultramontanism Traditionalist School
Personal variants Berlusconism Bukelism Cameronism Chiangism Erdoğanism Francoism Fujimorism Gaullism Janismo Kaczyzm Maurrassisme Mellismo Metaxism Powellism Pinochetism Putinism Qutbism Khomeinism Reaganism Sarkozysm Thatcherism Trumpism Ziaism
National variants Australia Austria Bangladesh Belgium Belize Brazil Canada Chile China Hong Kong Colombia Cuba Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Guatemala Hungary Iceland India Iran Israel Italy Japan Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Pakistan Panama Peru Poland Russia Serbia Singapore Sweden Switzerland South Korea Taiwan Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States
Related ideologies Agrarianism Clerical fascism Communitarianism Conservative liberalism Corporatism Ordoliberalism
Related topics Anti-communism White Terror Anti-gender movement Anti-immigration Black conservatism US Catholic social teaching Clericalism Conservative feminism Conservative socialism Conservative wave Hispanic conservatism US LGBT conservatism NatCon Nativism Para-fascism Patriarchy Patriarchalism Radical right Europe US Right realism Right-wing politics Alt Authoritarianism Centre Dictatorship Far New Small-c conservative Toryism
Conservatism portal Politics portal
v t e

John Enoch Powell MBE (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, scholar and writer. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South West for the Conservative Party from 1950 to February 1974 and as the MP for South Down for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from October 1974 to 1987. He was 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 Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath.

Before entering politics Powell was a classical scholar and a brigadier, having served in the British Army during the Second World War. He wrote both poetry and books on classical and political subjects. He is remembered particularly for his views on immigration and demographic change. In 1968 Powell attracted attention nationwide for his "Rivers of Blood" speech, in which he criticised immigration to Britain, and especially the rapid influx from the Commonwealth of Nations (former colonies of the British Empire) in the post-war era. He opposed the Race Relations Bill, a major anti-discrimination bill which ultimately became law. His speech was criticised by some of his own party members and The Times as racialist.^[1][2] Heath, who was then the leader of the Conservative Party and the 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.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

Powell turned his back on the Conservatives and endorsed a vote for the Labour Party, which returned as a minority government at the February 1974 general election.^[8][9] Powell was returned to the House of Commons in October 1974 as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for the constituency of South Down in Northern Ireland. He represented it until he was defeated at the 1987 general election. Powell died in 1998 aged 85, and remains a divisive and controversial figure in Britain.