Enoch Powell- Bringing the Immigration Issue to the Center of Politics

During the late 1960’s, a great political issue in Great Britain became the influx of immigrants from old colonies. Enoch Powell was the leading spokesman of those in favor of suspending immigration and assisting in re-immigration. He delivered the following speech in Birmingham (UK) in 1968 against the Race Relations Bill:

· Anecdote of a man approached Powell and told him that this country was not worthy of his children

· In fifteen or twenty years from 1968 there will be 3.5 million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendents

· How can this be stopped/reduced? Stopping further inflow and promoting maximum outflow

· It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre

· There is nothing wrong with coming to study in Great Britain then leading the ways back to the old Commonwealth countries, like many doctors do, but this is not immigration

· Families should not be divided, but they will be able to reunited in their native countries with re-immigration

· Every citizen in GB is equal before the law, so the influx of immigrants causes an unequal distribution of first and second class citizens

· The Race Relations Bill will make it illegal to discriminate by color, race, or ethnicity

· However, this bill is only going to bring in more immigration, taking away the rights of original British citizens and increasing the population past its given equilibrium point