The podcast The Rest Is History has done a very nice job with an episode on Enoch Powell, one of the most famous British political figures of the last century, and his career-ending anti-immigration speech, known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech because toward the end of it he quotes Virgil: “As I look ahead,” said Powell, “I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.'”
Powell was a prophetic politician in many senses. First, he was an economic liberal in a time of Tory “squishes,” foreshadowing the turn by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Second, in the 1970s he was one of the few to campaign against entry into the European Common Market. He believed it was a threat to the sovereignty of the nation. In this he previewed Brexit. And last, yes, though his speech was wrong in certain important respects, the United Kingdom’s present political turmoil, one that threatens to destroy both of the dominant parties of the last 100 years, is primarily the result of out-of-control immigration.
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