Enoch Powell

The Right Honourable John Enoch Powell MBE (June 16, 1912 – February 8, 1998) was a British politician. Controversial throughout his career, his tenure in senior office was brief; however, his skills as a polemicist and orator gained significant public support for his controversial views on issues such as immigration and the United Kingdom's entry into the European Union, sparking national debates which continue to this day.

Ulster Unionist Party

In a sudden general election later in 1974, Powell returned to Parliament as an Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, having rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the National Front. He was a strong believer in the United Kingdom, and he believed that it would only survive if the Unionists strove to integrate fully with the United Kingdom by abandoning the devolved rule that Northern Ireland had recently enjoyed. He refused point blank to join the Orange Order (who largely controlled the UUP after their split from the Conservative Party) - the first Ulster Unionist MP at Westminster never to be a member (and to date only one of three, the others being the former UDR member Ken Maginnis and Lady Hermon), and he was an outspoken opponent of the more extremist Unionism espoused by the Reverend Ian Paisley and his supporters.

Related Topics:
General election later in 1974 - Parliament - Ulster Unionist - South Down - National Front - Unionist - Northern Ireland - Orange Order - Westminster - Ken Maginnis - Lady Hermon - Ian Paisley

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Powell claimed that the only way to stop the IRA was for Ulster to be an integral part of the United Kingdom, treated no differently than any other of its constituent parts. He claimed the ambiguous nature of Ulster's status, with its own parliament and prime minister, gave hope to the IRA that it could detach Ulster from the UK:

Related Topics:
IRA - Ulster - United Kingdom - Parliament - Prime minister - UK

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"Every word or act which holds out the prospect that their unity with the rest of the United Kingdom might be negotiable is itself, consciously or unconsciously, a contributory cause to the continuation of violence in Northern Ireland".

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Northern Ireland

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In Powell's later career as an Ulster Unionist MP he continued to criticise the United States and claimed that the Americans were trying to persuade the British to get Ulster into an all-Ireland state because the condition for Irish membership of NATO, Powell claimed, was the Six Counties. The Americans wanted to close the 'yawning gap' in NATO defence that was the southern Irish coast to northern Spain. Powell claimed he had a copy of a State Department Policy Statement from the 15th August 1950 in which the American government allegedly said that the 'agitation' caused by partition in Ireland 'lessens the usefulness of Ireland in international organisations and complicates strategic planning for Europe'. 'It is desirable', the document continued, 'that Ireland should be integrated into the defense planning of the North Atlantic area, for its strategic position and present lack of defensive capacity are matters of significance'.

Related Topics:
NATO - Six Counties

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In 1984 Powell also claimed that the CIA had murdered Lord Louis Mountbatten and that the deaths of the MPs Airey Neave and Robert Bradford were by the Americans in order to stop Neave's policy of integration for Northern Ireland. Then in 1986 he again argued that INLA had not killed Airey Neave but 'MI6 and their friends' were responsible instead.

Related Topics:
CIA - Louis Mountbatten - Airey Neave - Robert Bradford - Northern Ireland - INLA - MI6

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After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 Powell claimed that because Britain was not an ally of Kuwait in the 'formal sense' and that the balance of power in the Middle East ceased to be a British concern after the end of the British Empire Britain should not go to war. Powell claimed that 'Saddam Hussein has a long way to go yet before his troops come storming up the beaches of Kent or Sussex' and after Britain claimed to be defending small nations from attack Powell said 'I sometimes wonder if, when we shed our power, we omitted to shed our arrogance'.

Related Topics:
Balance of power - Middle East - British Empire - Saddam Hussein - Kent - Sussex

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When German unification was on the agenda in 1990 Powell claimed Britain urgently needed to create an alliance with Russia in view of Germany's affect on the balance of power in Europe. This part of Powell's analysis was taken more seriously by the Atlanticist Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who tried to get the then Soviet-leader Gorbachev to halt unification, but failed.

Related Topics:
Alliance - Russia - Balance of power - Europe - Atlanticist - Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher - Gorbachev

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Though he was on supposedly good terms with Margaret Thatcher (she claimed her own monetarist policies stemmed from Powell's, to which he remarked drily, "A pity she did not understand them!"), he came into conflict with her in 1985 in protest because of her support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement, resigning his seat and then regaining it at the ensuing by-election. Powell lost his seat in the 1987 general election to the SDLP's Eddie McGrady, mainly due to both demographic changes and boundary changes resulting in there being many more Catholics in his seat of South Down than before. Ironically, the boundary changes had arisen due to his own campaign for the number of MPs representing Northern Ireland to be increased to the equivalent proportion for the rest of the United Kingdom, as part of the steps towards greater integration.

Related Topics:
Margaret Thatcher - Anglo-Irish Agreement - 1987 general election - SDLP - Eddie McGrady - South Down

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His unionism did not block his capacity for independent thought; he was critical of the SAS shootings of three unarmed IRA members in Gibraltar in 1988.

Related Topics:
SAS - IRA - Gibraltar

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