Rebuff to ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech to be given in room where Powell lit touchpaper MP to hold rally against racism in same hotel 50 years on
IT IS 50 years since Midland MP Enoch Powell delivered his explosive “Rivers of Blood” speech in a Birmingham hotel.
Now a Midland MP is to mark the occasion by hosting a “rally against racism” in the same hotel, with speeches explaining why Powell was wrong.
Powell said the UK must be “literally mad” to allow high levels of immigration from Commonwealth countries. It was “like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre,” he said.
But the message from Black Country MP Ian Austin’s event will be that history has proven Powell wrong. Immigration continued, and the country is more diverse than Powell could ever have imagined – but the UK has actually got better over the past 50 years, Mr Austin will say.
He has booked the largest room in the Burlington Hotel (formerly the Midland Hotel) off New Street, where Powell gave the speech to a handful of people in April 1968.
Mr Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, said high-profile speakers from across the country will take part, and the goal is for hundreds of people to come together to celebrate modern Britain.
It comes as a fierce debate rages over Powell’s place in history and whether it should be celebrated.
Powell was a Brummie, born in Stechford and educated at King Edward’s School in Edgbaston, but he was MP for Wolverhampton South West when the speech was delivered.
The Post reported last week that Wolverhampton Civic and Historical Society is currently considering an application to erect a blue plaque in the city to mark Powell’s 24 years representing it in Parliament. A sixperson panel will decide whether to accept the proposal.
But the idea has been opposed by Wolverhampton’s three MPs, all Labour, as well as Conserva- tive politician Paul Uppal, who was a Wolverhampton MP from 2010 to 2015.
The Bishops of Wolverhampton and Lichfield are also opposed to erecting a plaque. Powell delivered the speech on April 20, 1968. The most famous line refers to “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”, a quote from an epic poem written in ancient Rome, in which the blood is an omen of conflict to come.
Some of Powell’s critics say he was suggesting there would be blood and violence on the streets of Britain, but if that is what he meant it is certainly not quite what he said.
What is not in doubt is that he was arguing firmly against allowing significant immigration from non-white countries, and warning that it posed a “national danger”.
Powell claimed that one constituent, an “ordinary working man”, had told him: “I shan’t be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas.
“In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.”
And he endorsed the comment, saying: “Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that his country will not be worth living in for his children.”
Mr Powell also told the story of a pensioner who he said was the only white person left on her street.
He said: “She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letter box. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist,’ they chant.”
Fifty years on, Mr Austin said: “This was a shameful speech that caused great division, presented a terrible image of the Black Country and even resulted in people being attacked.
“Powell divided communities based on the colour of people’s skin, he wanted immigrants to leave the country and predicted race wars and blood on the streets.
“His terrible predictions have never become true. Instead, the West Midlands is home to communities in which people from different countries, backgrounds and cultures work and live together harmoniously.
“People from all over the world have made a huge contribution to community life, to our NHS and other public services and, by setting up businesses and creating jobs, our economy too so I’m inviting speakers from across the country and people from around the region to join me as we celebrate all the ways Britain has got better over the last 50 years.”
Mr Austin’s event takes place at 6pm on April 19 this year at the Burlington Hotel, New Street, Birmingham.
This was a shameful speech that caused great division, presented a terrible image of the Black Country and even resulted in people being attacked