Editing Enoch Powell (section)

==Final years==
[[File:Enoch Powell 27 Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|upright|180px|Portrait of Enoch Powell by Allan Warren in 1987]]
In late 1992, aged 80, Powell was diagnosed with [[Parkinson's disease]]. In 1994, he published ''The Evolution of the Gospel: A New Translation of the First Gospel with Commentary and Introductory Essay''. On 5 November, the ''European'' printed an article by Powell in which he said he did not expect the [[European Communities Act 1972 (UK)|European Communities Act 1972]] to be amended or repealed but added, "Still, something has happened. There has been an explosion. Politicians, political parties, the public itself have looked into the abyss&nbsp;... the British people, somehow or other, will not be parted from their right to govern themselves in parliament".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=939}}

In 1993, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, Powell wrote an article for ''The Times'', in which he claimed the concentration of immigrant communities in inner cities would lead to "[[Communalism (South Asia)|communalism]]", which would have grave effects on the electoral system: "communalism and democracy, as the experience of India demonstrates, are incompatible". In May, he spoke for [[Alan Sked]] of the [[Anti-Federalist League]] (the forerunner of the [[UK Independence Party]]) who was standing at the [[1993 Newbury by-election|Newbury by-election]]. Sked went on to lose his deposit at the by-election, polling only 601 votes (1.0 per cent). At [[Michael Portillo]]'s 40th birthday party the same month, Thatcher greeted him enthusiastically and asked him: "Enoch, I haven't seen you since your eightieth-birthday dinner. How are you?" Powell replied, "I'm eighty-one". Powell's opinion of Thatcher had declined after she endorsed [[John Major]] at the 1992 general election, which he believed to be a repudiation of her fight against [[European integration]] following the [[Bruges speech]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=939–940}}

On 16 May 1994, Powell spoke at the [[Bruges Group (United Kingdom)|Bruges Group]] and said Europe had "destroyed one Prime Minister and will destroy another Prime Minister yet" and demanded that powers surrendered to the [[European Court of Justice]] to be repatriated. In June 1994, he wrote an article for the ''Daily Mail'', where he stated that "Britain is waking from the nightmare of being part of the continental bloc, to rediscover that these offshore islands belong to the outside world and lie open to its oceans". Innovations in contemporary society did not worry him: "When exploration has run its course, we shall revert to the normal type of living to which nature and instinct predispose us. The decline will not have been permanent. The deterioration will not have been irreversible".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=943}}

In his book ''The Evolution of the Gospel'', published in August 1994, Powell said he had arrived at the view that Jesus Christ was not crucified but stoned to death by the Jews. Bishop [[John Austin Baker]] commented "He is a great classicist, but theology is out of his academic field."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/profile-not-as-rigorous-as-he-thinks-enoch-powell-craggy-lonely-controversial-still-1377550.html|title=Profile: Not as rigorous as he thinks: Enoch Powell, craggy, lonely, controversial still|date=19 August 1994|work=[[The Independent]]|location=London|access-date=5 January 2016}}</ref>

Following his death, Powell's friend Richard Ritchie recorded in 1998 that "during one of the habitual coal crises of recent years he told me that he had no objection to supporting the coal industry, either through the restriction of cheap coal imports or subsidy, if it were the country's wish to preserve local coal communities".<ref>Richard Ritchie, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110427075129/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199802/ai_n8791279/ Enoch the unexpected]", ''The Spectator'', 14 February 1998.</ref>

In the 1990s, Powell endorsed three UKIP candidates in parliamentary elections.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hope|first1=Christopher|title=Revealed: how Nigel Farage and Ukip begged for Enoch Powell's support|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11291406/Revealed-how-Nigel-Farage-and-Ukip-begged-for-Enoch-Powells-support.html|access-date=13 December 2014|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=12 December 2014}}</ref> He also turned down two invitations to stand for the party in elections, citing retirement.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Ukip letters to Enoch Powell|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11290715/The-Ukip-letters-to-Enoch-Powell.html|access-date=13 December 2014|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=12 December 2014}}</ref>

In April 1995, he said in an interview that for the Conservatives "defeat [at the next election] would help. It helps one to change one's tune". The party was just "slithering around". The same month, he took part at a debate on Europe at the [[Cambridge Union]] and won.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|pp=945–946}}</ref>

In July 1995, there was a [[1995 Conservative Party leadership election|leadership election for the Conservative Party]], in which Major resigned as leader of the party and stood in the election. Powell wrote, "He says to the Sovereign: I no longer am leader of the majority party in the House of Commons; but I am carrying on as your Prime Minister. Now I don't think anybody can say that—at least without inflicting damage on the constitution". To seek to offer advice to the Queen while unable to feel they could command a majority in the Commons was "tantamount to treating the monarch herself with disrespect and denying the very principle in which our parliamentary democracy is founded". After Major's challenger, [[John Redwood]], was defeated, Powell wrote to him, "Dear Redwood, you will never regret the events of the last week or two. Patience will evidently have to be exercised—and patience is the greatest of the political virtues—by those of us who want to keep Britain independent and self-governed".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=945–946}}

During the final years of his life, he managed occasional pieces of journalism and co-operated in a [[BBC]] documentary about his life in 1995 (''Odd Man Out'' was broadcast on 11 November). In April 1996, he wrote an article for the ''Daily Express'', in which he said: "Those who consented to the surrender made in 1972 will have to think again. Thinking again means that activity most unthinkable for politicians—unsaying what has been said. The surrender&nbsp;... we have made is not irrevocable. Parliament still has the power (thank God) to reclaim what has been surrendered by treaty. It is time we told the other European nations what we mean by being self-governed".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=948–949}} In October, he gave his last interview, to [[Matthew d'Ancona]] in the ''Sunday Telegraph''.

He said: "I have lived into an age in which my ideas are now part of common intuition, part of a common fashion. It has been a great experience, having given up so much to find that there is now this range of opinion in all classes, that an agreement with the EEC is totally incompatible with normal parliamentary government.&nbsp;... The nation has returned to haunt us".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=949}} When Labour won the [[1997 United Kingdom general election|1997 general election]], Powell told his wife, Pamela Wilson, "They have voted to break up the United Kingdom." She rejoined the Conservative Party the next day, but he did not.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=950}} By then, Powell had been hospitalised several times as a result of a succession of falls.