What do you believe Enoch meant by this comment, was he prophesying?

Question

"You may think it is harmless. It is not. You may think it is aimed at me. it is not. It is aimed at all of you. They are after you. All of you are their target. Its aim is to see the day to day way of life, the decent things of life, that the majority want, demolished and destroyed. It is a movement that is in its infancy in this country. It is world wide but no mistake about it, it is spreading."

During a speech about immigration, 1960s

Answer 1

He meant "I am a blithering idiot." Being a blithering idiot, he rambled on about foreigners instead.

@ Doctor John

I am aware of his achievements and skills. He was still a blithering idiot, his intellectual abilities obscured by emotive irrationalities.

@ alia

For someone who is allegedly not racist he spends a lot of time complaining about how non-whites are detrimental to whites; only very rarely does he remember to justify all this with remarks about resources.

He talks about repatriating non-whites as a solution to the non-existent resource problem without considering that a symmetrical repatriation of whites to the UK would, in fact, sink us, and without considering that anglo-saxons like himself are immigrants in the UK.

In short, a racist, blithering idiot.

Why do we have shortages in the NHS? Not because of Johnny Foreigner, but because our country is mismanaged. Mostly by white people.

Answer 2

Enoch Powell's, "Rivers of Blood" speech (April, 1968) turned out to be a prophecy of what is happening in Britain today. It was not a raciest speech, although many thought so, just a 'common sense' speech.

Today, too many people attach "racism" to whatever subject, does not please them.

Like the Concord, Enoch Powell was well ahead of his time.

Perhaps it would serve the younger members of the board, an insight into the meaning of his speech, if they did a Google search on the "Rivers of Blood" speech and read it in it's full context.

He was not a Prophet as such, but a man with a great insight into the dangers of allowing too many immigrants into the U.K.

Answer 3

What he was talking about is what is happening today. I don't know what planet the guy that called him a blithering idiot has been living on but it certainly isn't this one! He was warning against the effects of mass immigration - and he wasn't a racist as some people have tried to say. He knew that these islands are too small to contain such a movement - he also knew of the Council of Moslem's intent to turn Europe into Islamic states. He also knew that the so called Liberal Intelligentsia that opposed him had no real knowledge of the ordinary people of this country and that what they were proposing was the breakdown of law and order and a way of life that had been fought for over the centuries.

Answer 4

Enoch Powell was possibly one of the greatest MPs of the last century. He was wise beyond measure, a great poet and more astute then anyone in the liberal biased media and political classes ever gives him credit for.

His Rivers of Blood speech was not racist- it was a sensible look at the problems caused by unlimited immigration that the Labour Party set up after the Second World War. He saw that there would a housing shortage, racial tensions and economic struggles as jobs were short. He was saying limit immigration (incidentally exactly what Michael Howard said in 2005 when the Great British public decided to return the Blair and Brown show to Downing Street, but hey ho! I digress)

Mr Powell was misunderstood to appease the Polly Toynbees and Johann Hari's and Will Selfs of the 70s. The awful Ted Heath sacrificed him for a handful of panic and now he has been villified. A great Parliamentary career in which morals and standing up for the people of his constistuency was overshadowed by one speech in which a simple simile was taken out of context.

It is due to this that unsavoury parties such as the BNP have taken Mr Powell to their busom, away from his true home- the Conservative Party. Mr Powell would have loated the BNP and all they stand for. As Lord Tebbit has recently pointed out, the BNP are not right-wing at all. They play the politics of race and get branded right-winged by leftist commentators.

He was prophesising in his Rivers of Blood speech. But it was not prophesising doom and gloom from a racist standpoint as Toynbee and Co. (inc. the BBC) would have us all believe. It was standing up for all of the people of the country he loved and fought for in WW2, black and white, man and woman, rich and poor, old and young, whose futures he saw failing due to the flippant attitude that governments had successfully taken towards immigration policy since 1945 and which are only now being faced sensibly by Gordon Brown stealing the great Conservative idea of Mr Howard and Mr Cameron of having a unified border police.

Answer 5

Sadly, Enoch Powell saw what was coming and noone listened to him.

He was not being racist, he was being realistic. He saw what large scale immigration would do. Those who encouraged it only saw the short term advantages - cheap labour, a workforce to do the less well paid work, leaving better paid jobs for native British people etc.

Powell foresaw that after these initial benefits had been enjoyed things would go badly wrong.

We are now reaping the "rewards" of not heeding his warning.

Like the attempted attacks on Glasgow airport and Tiger Tiger Nightclub and the 7/7 bombings.

Answer 6

Powell was not a racist although he was pilloried as one by the left, he was a realist and saw what was coming. It is only now that the majority of us are begining to wake up. Blacks were not and are not the problem it is many not all of those from the east whoes families left to maakae a better life for themselves who now want to adopt the very way of life that brought them poverty in the first place. If that is racist then tough

Answer 7

I believe Enoch was a far seeing man who realised what was happening in the world saw the implications and genuinely tried to warn us in advance of what was in the future

That comment was verging on the psychic

Answer 8

He spoke the truth, but no one listened to him because they were afraid of being called a racist.
The majority of arrests for shootings, knife attacks and muggings in this country are young black men, statistics prove it. The word racist is used by all non-white people of this country as an excuse to get their own way.
Enoch Powell was right in every way and word.

Answer 9

You know what's really funny. I remember a very skilled Jamaican Doctor back in the '60's who actually agreed with old Enoch. His comment was "this country will have problems because it's letting in all the riff-raff"

HOW TRUE!!

Answer 10

It wasn't about Communism - it was about immigrant workers to the U.K. There was a large influx of ethnic minorities at the time who had been encouraged to apply for work in this Country to fill job vacancies in places like hospitals and to take on the low-paid jobs which couldn't (or wouldn't) be filled by the resident work force.

Answer 11

it was enoch powells great idea to ask the people of the west indies to help britain with their employment problem in the 50s ie run buses trains etc when the bubble burst in the seventies he thought he could send them back (this is, and never will be the problem,or the answer the problem being we have forgotten the nations that helped this tiny island be great and have kicked them aside by joining in the eec and with countries we have allways been at war with france, italy, germany, spain, etc long live the british empire and all its diverse people) SOME PEOPLE SHOULD READ THEIR HISTORY.