Editing Enoch Powell (section)

===Departure from the Conservative Party===
A [[Gallup poll]] in February 1969 showed Powell to be the "most admired person" in British public opinion.<ref name="dumbrell"/>

In a defence debate in March 1970, Powell said that "the whole theory of the tactical nuclear weapon, or the tactical use of nuclear weapons, is an unmitigated absurdity" and that it was "remotely improbable" that any group of nations engaged in war would "decide upon general and mutual suicide", and advocated enlargement of the UK's conventional forces. However, when fellow Conservative [[Julian Amery]] later in the debate criticised Powell for his antinuclear pronouncements, Powell responded: "I have always regarded the possession of the nuclear capability as a protection against [[nuclear blackmail]]. It is a protection against being threatened with [[nuclear weapons]]. What it is not a protection against is war".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=549}}

The [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]] took place on 18 June and was unexpectedly won by the Conservatives, with a late surge in their support. Powell's supporters claim that he contributed to this surprise victory. In "exhaustive research" on the election, the American pollster Douglas Schoen and University of Oxford academic R. W. Johnson believed it "beyond dispute" that Powell had attracted 2.5 million votes to the Conservatives, but the Conservative vote had increased by only 1.7 million since 1966.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} However, the Conservative victory was reportedly not to Powell's advantage, who according to friends, "sat in his head in his hands" for many days afterwards.<ref>{{Citation |last=Cockerell |first=Michael |title=Odd Man Out: A Film Portrait of Enoch Powell (1995) |date=1995 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaTdoxuiKQY |publisher=BBC |language=en |access-date=2023-01-03}}</ref>

Powell had voted against the [[Schuman Declaration]] in 1950 and had supported entry into the [[European Coal and Steel Community]] only because he believed that it was simply a means to secure free trade. In March 1969, he opposed the UK's joining the [[European Economic Community]]. Opposition to entry had hitherto been confined largely to the Labour Party but now, he said, it was clear to him that the sovereignty of Parliament was in question, as was UK's very survival as a nation. This nationalist analysis attracted millions of middle-class Conservatives and others, and as much as anything else it made Powell the implacable enemy of Heath, a fervent pro-European; but there was already enmity between the two.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

During 1970, Powell gave speeches about the EEC in [[Lyon]] (in French), [[Frankfurt]] (in German), [[Turin]] (in Italian) and [[The Hague]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Howard | first = Lord | year = 2014 | title = Enoch at 100: A re-evaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell | publisher = Biteback publishing | isbn = 9781849547420 | page = 20}}</ref>

The Conservatives had promised at the 1970 general election<ref>{{cite web | work = Politics Resources | url = http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con70.htm | title = Not updated: British Conservative Party election manifesto | orig-year = 1970 | publisher = Keele | location = UK | date = 11 March 2008 | access-date = 10 August 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100110125744/http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con70.htm | archive-date = 10 January 2010 | url-status = dead }}</ref> in relation to the Common Market, "Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less." The second reading of the Bill to put the Treaty into law was passed by just eight votes on second reading, and Powell declared his hostility to his party's line. He voted against the government on every one of the 104 divisions in the course of the European Communities Bill. When Britain finally entered the EEC in January 1973, after three years of campaigning on the question, he decided he could no longer sit in a parliament that he believed was no longer sovereign.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

A ''[[Daily Express]]'' opinion poll in 1972 showed Powell to be the most popular politician in the country.<ref name="alor"/> In mid-1972, he prepared to resign the Conservative whip and changed his mind only because of fears of a renewed wave of immigration from Uganda after the accession of [[Idi Amin]], who had expelled Uganda's Asian residents. He decided to remain in parliament and in the Conservative Party, and was expected to support the party in Wolverhampton at the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|snap general election of February 1974]] called by [[Edward Heath]]. However, on 23 February 1974, with the election only five days away, Powell dramatically turned his back on his party, giving as the reasons that it had taken the United Kingdom into the EEC without having a mandate to do so, and that it had abandoned other manifesto commitments, so that he could no longer support it at the election.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |title=1974 |work=Express & Star |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717052230/http://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |archive-date=17 July 2012 }}</ref> The monetarist economist [[Milton Friedman]] sent Powell a letter praising him as principled,{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=703}} and notably, there was a breakaway faction of the Conservative Party in [[Gloucester (UK Parliament constituency)|Gloucester]] which selected a candidate who stood under the party name of "Powell Conservative", securing 366 votes, 0.7% of the overall vote share in the constituency.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://spprd.insec.netcopy.thompsonjames.co.uk/article/23rd-february-1974/11/1-oucester-a-l-ocal-correspondent-he-intervention-
 |title=Reports From the Marginals − Gloucester
 |publisher=The Spectator Archive
 |access-date=12 October 2024
 |df=dmy 
}}</ref> There was also a candidate listed in the neighbouring constituency of [[Stroud (UK Parliament constituency)|Stroud]] who obtained 470 votes, 0.8% of the overall vote share in the constituency.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell had arranged for his friend [[Andrew Alexander (journalist)|Andrew Alexander]] to talk to [[Joe Haines (journalist)|Joe Haines]], the press secretary of the Labour leader [[Harold Wilson]], about the timing of Powell's speeches against Heath. Powell had been talking to Wilson irregularly since June 1973 during chance meetings in the gentlemen's lavatories of the "aye" lobby in the House of Commons.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=701–702}} Wilson and Haines had ensured that Powell would dominate the newspapers of the Sunday and Monday before election day by having no Labour frontbencher give a major speech on 23 February, the day of Powell's speech.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=704–705}} Powell gave this speech at the Mecca Dance Hall in the [[Bull Ring, Birmingham|Bull Ring]], Birmingham, to an audience of 1,500, with some press reports estimating that 7,000 more had to be turned away. Powell said the issue of British membership of the EEC was one where "if there be a conflict between the call of country and that of party, the call of country must come first":

{{blockquote|Curiously, it so happens that the question "Who governs Britain?" which at the moment is being frivolously posed, might be taken, in real earnest, as the title of what I have to say. This is the first and last election at which the British people will be given the opportunity to decide whether their country is to remain a democratic nation, governed by the will of its own electorate expressed in its own Parliament, or whether it will become one province in a new European superstate under institutions which know nothing of the political rights and liberties that we have so long taken for granted.<ref name="Collings" />{{rp|454}}}}

Powell went on to criticise the Conservative government for obtaining British membership despite the party having promised at the general election of 1970 that it would "negotiate: no more, no less" and that "the full-hearted consent of Parliament and people" would be needed if the UK were to join. He also denounced Heath for accusing his political opponents of lacking respect for Parliament while also being "the first Prime Minister in three hundred years who entertained, let alone executed, the intention of depriving Parliament of its sole right to make the laws and impose the taxes of this country".<ref name="Collings" />{{rp|456–457}} He then advocated a vote for the Labour Party:

{{blockquote|The question is: can they now be prevented from taking back into their own hands the decision about their identity and their form of government which truly was theirs all along? I do not believe they can be prevented: for they are now, at a general election, provided with a clear, definite and practicable alternative, namely, a fundamental renegotiation directed to regain free access to world food markets and recover or retain the powers of Parliament, a renegotiation to be followed in any event by a specific submission of the outcome to the electorate, a renegotiation protected by an immediate moratorium or stop on all further integration of the UK into the Community. This alternative is offered, as such an alternative must be in our parliamentary democracy, by a political party capable of securing a majority in the House of Commons and sustaining a Government.<ref name="Collings" />{{rp|458}}}}

This call to vote Labour surprised some of Powell's supporters who were more concerned with beating socialism than the supposed loss of national independence.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=707}} On 25 February, he made another speech at [[Shipley, West Yorkshire|Shipley]], again urging a vote for Labour, saying he did not believe the claim that Wilson would renege on his commitment to renegotiation, which Powell believed was ironic because of Heath's premiership: "In acrobatics Harold Wilson, for all his nimbleness and skill, is simply no match for the breathtaking, thoroughgoing efficiency of the present Prime Minister". At this moment a heckler shouted "Judas!" Powell responded: "Judas was paid! Judas was paid! I am making a sacrifice!"{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=708–709}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGkAou2uqBA |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/CGkAou2uqBA| archive-date=11 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=Enoch Powell denies he is a Judas|publisher=YouTube |date=4 February 1974 |access-date=14 October 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Later in the speech Powell said, "I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. It is part of me&nbsp;... it is something I cannot alter".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=709}} In 1987, Powell said there was no contradiction between urging people to vote Labour while proclaiming to be a Tory: "Many Labour members are quite good Tories".{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=404}}

Powell, in an interview on 26 February, said he would be voting for [[Helene Middleweek]], the Labour candidate, rather than the Conservative [[Nicholas Budgen]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=709–710}} Powell did not stay up on election night to watch the results on television, and when on 1 March he picked up his copy of ''The Times'' from his letterbox and saw the headline "Mr Heath's general election gamble fails", he reacted by singing the ''[[Te Deum]]''. He later said: "I had had my revenge on the man who had destroyed the self-government of the United Kingdom".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=710–711}} The election result was a [[hung parliament]]. Although the Tories had won the most votes, Labour finished five seats ahead of the Conservatives. The national swing to Labour was 1 per cent; 4 per cent in Powell's heartland, the [[West Midlands conurbation]]; and 16 per cent in his old constituency (although Budgen won the seat).{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=712}} According to the ''Telegraph'' journalist [[Simon Heffer]], both Powell and Heath believed that Powell had been responsible for the Conservatives' losing the election.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=712}}