There's only one thing more dangerous than a lunatic in politics, and that's a frustrated lunatic'. The lunatic in question - Enoch Powell. The description - that of Anthony Barber, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the 1973 Tory Party Conference!
But Enoch Powell has succeeded in building another image of himself: that of the parliamentarian, the orator with a cautionary tale from Rome or Greece always at hand. Above all, he has presented nimselt as the nonest politician, the man who will face facts however unpalatable, who will (literally) call a spade This image conveniently conceals the reality of Powell's success in gaining mass appeal: the techniques of the street corner demagoque, the calculating fixer who has seized on the issues of race, the mon Market and Ireland when the fuse of his soaring political ambition accoreo to Dc ournine out. ne nas tuned more and more into tnose issues on which sections of tne working class are politi cally weakest, in order to carve out for nimse t a mass base.
Powell is dangerous. He is the man who made racism respectable and gave the tin pot Nazis of the National Front and National Party a stalking horse for FADING Yet one thing stands out. Until 1968 Powell was a fading politician, known more for his homburg hat than as the high priest of economic Toryism, preach- as ne sui does today - nat all one needs to do to cure inflation is to cauce te amount or monev circulat ing in the economyhoto: CHRIS DAVIES (Report Then Powell discovered race and funeral pyres and the river Tiber foaming with blood. The man who had said in 1964 that, 'I will always set myface like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin now discovered that 'the West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law, he becomes a United Kingdon citizen by birth; in fact he is West Indian or Asian still.* The response, with dockers and Smithtield meat porters marching on Parlia ment, was dramatic. Powell had made it in a way that 'conventional' politics had he upped anchor and as good as called To a vote tor Labour.
He saw something that few others grasped so completely - that the defeat of the Tory Government in 1974 was a strategic defeat for the ruling class project of restoring the falling profits of British capitalism by defeating a core section or une working ciass in nead-on confrontation. Bourgeois politics fragmented.
What Powell also grasped was that to put together a coherent strategy for the ruling class again demanded first the splitting of the working class. Race and the Irish issue fitted this perspective to a T, playing on ingrained prejudices deep in the heart of the working class. Calling for a Labour vote in October 1974 again fitted this perspective; for while race and une irish issue aireddy spit tne working class ideologically, these were most key to become explosive arter a seriod of falling living standards and unemployment presided over by the traditional leadership of the labout movement.
When the social contract then became the E6 limit, Powell must have secretly leaped tor lov. meoretical ODoosition to Incomes Dolicy or not But Powell has not got it all sewn up. If his perspective was that of one day being recalled as leader of the Tory Party, then the logical thing to do would have been to have made his criticisms of Heath, waited for the fall, and then come forward as the Tories MICK GOSLING opens a discussion on the role of Enoch Powell in Britain today.
saviour in defeat. This he did not do.
a bonapartist, appearing to straddle classe and parties. In February 1974, when he spoke at his first "Get Britain Out Campaign' meeting in Birmingham after having ditched the Tories, the 1,500 strong audience rose to the suggestion that he stand as an independent. Powell refused to be drawn: 'Politics and rariament in mis countev are about party'.
CHANGE was almost a characterisation of his own actions: nen the connection or poly with party is assumed to be spurious or reversible, parliamentary politics sinks to the level of triviality and men will begin to look for other ways to influence or control the nation's affairs" (11 March 1974). Not least J. Enoch rowell further: The double general election of or a su-vear lone oost-war onase o British politics' (The Times, 4 Octobe 1974).
The essential feature of that close, according to Powell, was precisely the separation of party and politics on the central issues of the Common Market and anti-inflation policy. "Here, before His actions in fact are more those of be foreseen.
But only a month later, he wrote what After the October election he went February-October 1974 marked the close take off. our eyes, is the intimation of a reconstruc tion of the pattern of British politics in some new form that cannot as yet If Powell does not see his future as leader or the tory rarty, then what is his aim? Does he see his role as that of a British De Gaulle, coming to save the nation in its hour of need?
But in Britain there exists as yet no far-reaching crisis of the state structures themselves, as compared with France in T9bo. ne crisis or the capitaist parliamentary order is indeed deep, but with the organisational strength of the working class still intact, the ruling class would be risking everything if it embarked on such a precarious project.
Its preference would be to see the Torv Party revamped around a more right-wing line, and the role of Powell - an to mar matter me rascists within such a process is to drag the party to the rignt and lead une war cries to more strong state measures like the Prevention of terrorism ACt Which is not to write of rowell o the fascists. The imposition of such a Tory Government - made more possible every day by the disastrous policies being pursued by the Labour Government - would be a Die cereat tor tE working class. And it would also be the sorinoboare tor me tar tient to really people For chanting the National Front is a Nazi