Editing Enoch Powell (section)

===1979–1982===
Following a [[1980 St Pauls riot|riot in Bristol]] in 1980, Powell stated that the media were ignoring similar events in south London and Birmingham, and said: "Far less than the foreseeable New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic proportion would be sufficient to constitute a dominant political force in the United Kingdom able to extract from a government and the main parties terms calculated to render its influence still more impregnable. Far less than this proportion would provide the bases and citadels for urban terrorism, which would in turn reinforce the overt political leverage of simple numbers". He criticised "the false nostrums and promises of those who apparently monopolise the channels of communication. Who then is likely to listen, let alone to respond, to the proof that nothing short of major movements of population can shift the lines along which we are being carried towards disaster?"<ref>''The Times'' (12 July 1980), p. 2.</ref>

In the 1980s, Powell began espousing the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. In a debate on the nuclear deterrent on 3 March 1981, Powell claimed that the debate was now more political than military; that the UK did not possess an independent deterrent and that through NATO, the UK was tied to the nuclear deterrence theory of the United States.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=843}} In the debate on the address shortly after the general election of 1983, Powell picked up on Thatcher's willingness, when asked, to use nuclear weapons as a "last resort". Powell presented a scenario of what he thought the last resort would be, namely that the [[Soviet Union]] would be ready to invade the UK and had used a nuclear weapon on somewhere such as [[Rockall]] to demonstrate their willingness to use it:

{{blockquote |What would the United Kingdom do? Would it discharge [[Polaris (UK nuclear programme)|Polaris]], [[Trident (UK nuclear programme)|Trident]] or whatever against the main centres of population of the Continent of Europe or in European Russia? If so, what would be the consequence? The consequence would not be that we should survive, that we should repel our antagonist—nor would it be that we should escape defeat. The consequence would be that we would make certain, as far as is humanly possible, the virtual destruction and elimination of the hope of the future in these islands.&nbsp;... I would much sooner that the power to use it was not in the hands of any individual in this country at all.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=876–877}}}}

Powell went on to say that if the Soviet invasion had already begun and the UK resorted to a retaliatory strike, the results would be the same: "We should be condemning, not merely to death, but as near as may be the non-existence of our population". To Powell, an invasion would take place with or without the UK's nuclear weapons and therefore there was no point in retaining them. He said that after years of consideration, he had come to the conclusion that there were no "rational grounds on which the deformation of our defence preparations in the United Kingdom by our determination to maintain a current independent nuclear deterrent can be justified".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=877}}

On 28 March 1981, Powell gave a speech to [[Ashton-under-Lyne]] Young Conservatives where he criticised the "conspiracy of silence" between the government and the opposition over the prospective growth through births of the immigration population, and added, {{"'}}We have seen nothing yet' is a phrase that we could with advantage repeat to ourselves whenever we try to form a picture of that future". He also criticised those who believed it was "too late to do anything" and that "there lies the certainty of violence on a scale which can only adequately be described as civil war".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-09-26 |title='A Different Reality': minority struggle in British cities |url=http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CRER/differentreality/timeline.html |access-date=2022-12-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926055138/http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CRER/differentreality/timeline.html |archive-date=26 September 2011 |quote=28 March: Enoch Powell warns of racial 'civil war' in Britain.}}</ref><ref>''The Times'' (30 March 1981), p. 2.</ref> He also said that the solution was "a reduction in prospective numbers as would represent re-emigration hardly less massive than the immigration which occurred in the first place". The Shadow Home Secretary, Labour MP [[Roy Hattersley]], criticised Powell for using "Munich beer-hall language".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=845}} On 11 April, there was a [[1981 Brixton riot|riot in Brixton]] and when on 13 April an interviewer quoted to Thatcher Powell's remark that "We have seen nothing yet", she replied: "I heard him say that and I thought it was a very very alarming remark. And I hope with all my heart that it isn't true".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=845}}

In July, a [[1981 Toxteth riots|riot]] took place in [[Toxteth]], Liverpool. On 16 July 1981, Powell gave a speech in the Commons in which he said the riots could not be understood unless one takes into consideration the fact that in some large cities, between a quarter and a half of those under 25 were immigrants or descended from immigrants. He read out a letter he had received from a member of the public about immigration that included the line: "As they continue to multiply and as we can't retreat further there must be conflict". A Labour MP, [[Martin Flannery (British politician)|Martin Flannery]], intervened, saying Powell was making "a National Front speech". Powell predicted "inner London becoming ungovernable or violence which could only effectively be described as civil war", and Flannery intervened again to ask what Powell knew about [[inner cities]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Powell replied: "I was a Member for Wolverhampton for a quarter of a century. What I saw in those early years of the development of this problem in Wolverhampton has made it impossible for me ever to dissociate myself from this gigantic and tragic problem". He also criticised the view that the causes of the riots were economic: "Are we seriously saying that so long as there is poverty, unemployment and deprivation our cities will be torn to pieces, that the police in them will be the objects of attack and that we shall destroy our own environment? Of course not". [[Judith Hart|Dame Judith Hart]] attacked his speech as "an evil incitement to riot". Powell replied: "I am within the judgment of the House, as I am within the judgment of the people of this country, and I am content to stand before either tribunal".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=846}}

After the [[Scarman Report]] on the riots was published, Powell gave a speech on 10 December in the Commons. Powell disagreed with Scarman, as the report stated that the black community was alienated because it was economically disadvantaged. Powell instead argued that the black community was alienated because it was alien. He said tensions would worsen because the non-white population was growing: whereas in [[Lambeth]] it was 25 per cent, of those of secondary school age it was 40 per cent. Powell said that the government should be honest to the people by telling them that in thirty years' time, the black population of Lambeth would have doubled in size.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=851}}

[[John Casey (academic)|John Casey]] records an exchange between Powell and Thatcher during a meeting of the [[Conservative Philosophy Group]]:

{{blockquote|[[Edward Norman (historian)|Edward Norman]] (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to "Western values". Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: "No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government." Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): "Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values." "No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed." Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism.<ref>John Casey, "[http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/28511/the-revival-of-tory-philosophy/ The revival of Tory philosophy]", ''The Spectator'', 14 March 2007.</ref>}}