This is a truly astonishing article, mentioning Enoch Powell neutrally, when his statement was understood to be explicitly racist *in 1968* It is analogous to saying that George Wallace's declaration of 'segregation forever ' shows how race relations in America have continued to be fraught
There’s a sort of writing about Enoch Powell that assumes he was spectacularly incapable of understanding the pragmatics of english useage whereas he was in fact one of the great rhetoricians of his age. He was exquisitely aware of what the perlocutionary effects of his speech would be.
It's also wrong about Blair and multiculturalism. I grew up in London in the 80s, I was familiar with the word and understood what it meant before I left primary school and that was years before Blair took office. Immigrants came to the UK because we're a commonwealth country, nothing to do with EU!
I want to know where he got nearly nine hundred years of immigration figures.
Are you sure you wouldn't be able to get such a statement printed in a US outlet?
Powell's speech claimed that immigration would lead to 'the black man having whip hand over the white ' and was in part in opposition to a bill banning racial discrimination! Its as subtle as a burning cross
It is true that the Labour government adopted more restrictive measures in 1968, but they were already in force before Powell's speech. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act was designed to exclude the majority of East African Asians from entering the UK, despite holding UK citizenship.
Like saying Bull Connor's K-9 unit were just taking their unbelievably vicious police dogs "...for a walk..." in Montgomery in 1963.
The 74% number is complete fantasy. Powell was a divisive, extremist working on the radical fringe of conservative politics. People hated the sound of his voice. Maybe 74% of people.😏