Opinion of Enoch Powell

[Rhodie]

Better than Tony Benn or Harold Wilson.

[Rhodie]

Come on, he wasn't being racist, just a little blunt. I think he was simply pointing out that Powell would probably have been more worried about Muslims than other minority groups, due to differences in culture.

[Rhodie]

Come on, he wasn't being racist, just a little blunt. I think he was simply pointing out that Powell would probably have been more worried about Muslims than other races, due to differences in culture.

First of all, Muslims are not a "race".

Sorry, miswrote (if that is a word). What I meant by race was the fact that most Muslims (although by no means all) tend to be from the same ethnic group.

[Rhodie]

There are Arab Muslims, Asian Muslims, African Muslims, white Muslims...  Muslims are not a homogeneous racial group.

Did you not read my by no means all remark. My point is that most people will not pick over such theoretical niceties of whether a Muslim is Arab or Asian, just as many people would be unable to distinguish an Irish Catholic from an English Catholic.

[Rhodie]

Come on, he wasn't being racist, just a little blunt. I think he was simply pointing out that Powell would probably have been more worried about Muslims than other races, due to differences in culture.

First of all, Muslims are not a "race".

Sorry, miswrote (if that is a word). What I meant by race was the fact that most Muslims (although by no means all) tend to be from the same ethnic group.

You better stop now before you say more stupid things. For your sake.

I further explained my meaning later on.

[Rhodie]

It is demanded that we dislike him because he was racist towards blacks in a manner in which we are not demanded to hate say Keir Hardie for being racist towards the Irish.

Oh nonsense. Nonsense. The issue with Powell isn't his personal racism (which, of course, wouldn't be something to ignore entirely given that this was no longer a period in which the existence of 'race' - and of the subsequent superiority of the British -  was taken for granted), but the fact that he exploited tensions caused by mass immigration for political purposes, and that he did so in such a way that made the situation worse as he legitimised popular racist sentiment in the West Midlands, at least as far as many people in the region were concerned, and that's without considering any damaging effects on national political discourse.

And Keir Hardie didn't?

"Dr. Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so"

At the birth of the Trades Union and ILP he was both anti-Irish and anti-Lithuanian. In 1887 the Ayrshire Miners Union under his leadership wanted Lithuanian labourers removed because 'their presence is a menace to the health and morality of the place and is, besides, being used to reduce the already too low wages earned by the workmen.' In 1889 he accused the Lithuanians at Glengarnock of being 'filthy.' He then suggested that the employment of foreign workers by British employers should be prohibited, unless they were political exiles, fled from religious persecution or came from nations with like for like wage rates.

When Lithuanians finally became organised politically (under the auspices of the Lithuanian Socialist Federation) it was a Marxist outfit due to almost non-existant relations with the ILP. Lithuanians were much less forgiving than the Irish.

If you are going to charge Enoch Powell 'exploiting tensions to make things worse' then someone like Keir Hardie is guilty of exactly the same. It just so happens it happened outside of living memory and didn't come from the mouth of a Tory.

Just remember, Keir Hardie was a left-winger, and thus that washes away any black marks he had on his record.