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The tragedy is that NEITHER ‘side’ looks at him as the real man and politician he was. A soldier, writer, politician, he was a deeply complex man. A classical scholar and multi-linguist with a deep love and respect for ancient non-European civilisations, from the ‘Near East’ to India. Who prided himself on speaking Urdu and Arabic fluently.

Racist?. Bigot?....Absolutely not.

QUOTE: “I have and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origins” (Enoch Powell 1964)

It was Enoch Powell who as Health Minister argued for allowing tens of thousands of blacks into Britain in the early 60’s, to serve in the NHS. And as I said and have pointed out, Powell was against racism and any suggestion that he believed in racial superiority. This was a man after all who spent six years fighting Nazism.

And he was an anti-imperialist from 1947 onwards, who believed the Empire should have gone all independent after India left. Who opposed the Suez War and had little or no time for the (predominantly white) Commonwealth. Who opposed the beating by a small number of British soldiers of Mau-Mau terrorists, and made a Commons speech saying so.

Powell also co-promoted the Bill to end the illegality of homosexuality and campaigned AGAINST the death penalty.

And as has also been pointed out, the speech he gave was not of his own making AND that he was opposed to ANY large influx of immigration in 1968 to Britain, be it black, Asian or white European.

A fact he made very clear in his famous interview in 1968 on the BBC’s ‘Any Questions’:

“But if they are different, and to the extent that they are different, then numbers clearly are of the essence and this is not wholly - or mainly, necessarily - a matter of colour. For example, if the immigrants were Germans or Russians, their colour would would be approximately the same as ours, but the problems which would be created and the change which could be brought about by a large introduction of a bloc of Germans or Russians into five areas in this country would be as serious - and in some respects more serious - than could follow from an introduction of a similar number of West Indians or Pakistanis.”

—Enoch Powell on BBC Radio’s ‘Any Questions’
29 November, 1968.

ALL Powell did was warn us of the dangers of racial division and self-segregation. Much of which HAS come true. At worst, all he can be criticised for is the manner in which he warned. Yet since 1968, we have confused the messenger with the message. It is not Powell some ‘hate’, it is actually the message he gave that they dislike and find counter to their own view of the world.

So the neo-thug right venerate him despite his disgust as their ideas, as a man who fought fascism in its worst form in ww2. And the left hate him for in their eyes stoking racial tensions. Yet the idea that either side of him has is not the actual man. Neither have him ‘right’.