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How adequate is the term anti-liberalism in

understanding Powells opposition to mass
immigration in post-war Britain?
The term anti-liberal is used by Camilla Schofield in her recent
book Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain
(Schofield, 2013) to describe a facet of Powells critique of British
consensus politics. It described Powells concern with governance
as best limited to material, rather than moral, power (ibid., p.
263). This essay closely analyses Powells thought on mass
immigration from the Commonwealth to Britain in the post-war
years. It argues that the term anti-liberalism is an adequate term
to understand Powells opposition to mass immigration, but that it
makes much more sense when we consider it in relation to Powells
more central republicanism.
Anti-liberalism

refers

to

the

opposition

of

liberal

consensus of government that came to dominate politics in postwar Britain (Schofield, 2013). Maurice Cowling, a prominent
conservative historian around this time, better describes this
consensus by reference to the term public doctrine. Cowling
defines this term as, that loose combination of interlocking
assumptions

about

politics,

economics,

science,

scholarship,

morality, education, aesthetics and religion which constitutes the

basis on which decisions are made about public matters (Cowling,
1978, p. 21). He believed that the public doctrine of governance at
the time was dominated by a pervasive liberalism, maintained by a
left-liberal elite (Stapleton, 2014, p. 208), which had turned the
nations mind into a subject for experiment (Cowling, 1980, p. xiii).
Schofield viewed Powell as firmly against this liberal consensus,
especially on the issue of immigration (Schofield, 2013, p. 262).
Powell has been seen as a prominent leader of the sane
Right (Stapleton, 2014, p. 216), a group of Conservative thinkers
and politicians who, according to T.E. Utley, recognized the need

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for a careful balance between principles and expediency (ibid.).

This distinction can roughly be mapped on to Schofields distinction
within Powells anti-liberalism between moral, and material, power
respectively. The similar distinction between expediency and
principle is therefore also of interest when attempting to evaluate
the adequacy of the term anti-liberalism in understanding Powells
opposition to mass immigration.
In a speech in 1969, when commenting on Harold Wilsons
claim that the Labour Party had been compassionate towards the
TUC, Powell said this:
[I]t is a humbugging abuse of language, intended to deceive, to talk
about a compassionate government or a compassionate party
or even a compassionate society, unless one simply means by
that a society which happens to contain a lot of compassionate
individuals. (Powell and Wood, 1972b, pp. 22-23)

This striking statement on compassion seems to suggest that

Powell believed that government had limited moral power, and that
morality is best confined to the actions of the individual:
compassion is something individual and voluntary (Powell and
Wood, 1972b, pp. 22-23). Powells eschewal of morality in
governance, especially Christian morality, is echoed when speaking
on the more specific issue of immigration: [t]here is nothing in
Christian ethics which enables us, having recognised the existence
of nations, to decide what policy a particular nation should follow in
admitting or not admitting those who do not belong to itthese are
concepts of which Christianity knows nothing (Howard of Rising,
2012, p. 137). This would suggest that Powell is simply being
expedient; however, it is clear that politics for Powell does have
some dimension of morality. He says that, as long as these concepts
of

national

frontiers,

national

identification,

and

national

communities remain, this is something of which I feel I am duty

bound to take account (Powell, 1973, p. 99). Thus, the morality in
2

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politics for Powell is grounded in his republicanism, in his

assertion of the primacy of representation (Schofield, 2013, p.
263). Immigration for Powell was not just about being expedient,
but about following the duties, principles, and obligations of a
politician.
Powell viewed himself as a political representative in the
Burkean sense, meaning that he was not just a delegate to mirror
the opinions of his constituents. Instead, he was their trustee, who,
at his best gave voice and meaning to an unarticulated feeling
(Schofield,

2013,

p.

235).

As

Burke

himself

put

it,

our

representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment;
and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your
opinion (Burke, 1774). The emphasis on hearing out peoples
opinions and forming judgements on them is of vital importance
here, and it is something that Powell did often (Howard of Rising,
2012, p. 163). This is certainly the case on the issue of immigration.
For Powell, the sheer importance of the immigration issue to his
constituents meant the he was obliged to raise it, I simply do not
have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something
else (ibid., p. 173).
As we have seen, because Powell did not believe that
governments could force people to be moral or change their moral
views, and because of his is strongly held republicanism, all the
good politician had left to do was material in nature. Politics for
Powell then, was about putting the peoples needs and opinions
ahead of his own and fulfilling them as best he could. The priority
to represent discriminatory views thus led to many accusations of
Powell as being a racist. (One of the most deprecatory of which
came from Paul Foot, who labeled Powell as a racist pig of the
most despicable variety (Foot, 1998).) It is clear that, at least from
what he said, Powell was not a racist, and that he believed that no
human race was superior to any other. This was seen clearly in his
Hola Camp, Kenya 1959 speech, which powerfully condemned

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parliamentary colleagues for referring to the eleven Mau Mau

[killed at the hands of British Officials] as sub-human (Howard of
Rising, 2012, p. 55). However, although it could be reasonably
argued that Powell was not himself a racist, Powell consistently
refused to publicly condemn it [racism] among his supporters
(Schofield, 2013, p. 235). Thus, in the process of representing his
supporters

views,

Powell,

knowingly

endowed

the

social

experiences of his supporters and opponents with political content

(Schofield, 2013, p. 235). Therefore, Powell gave his supporters
potentially racist sentiments a political rationale.
Powell offered two main types of example as to why people in
Britain in the post-war period were against immigration. The first
was that it strained public services such as hospital beds, school
places, etc. (Howard of Rising, 2012, p. 176) and was viewed as a
collapse of the post-war consensus. The second reason was
communalism, which Powell said would make citizens in towns like
Wolverhampton see with their own eyes what they dread, the
transformationof towns, cities, and areas that they know into
alien territory (Powell and Wood, 1972a). Thus, Powell framed the
debate from a moral one centered on racism and discrimination to
a material one based on strained public services and uncomfortable
changes in towns and cities. For Schofield, this framing of the
debate on material lines is so important for any analysis of Powells
critique of race relations and liberal immigration policy because
the question of the moral imperative runs throughout (Schofield,
2013, p. 261).
The main material problem Powell had with immigration
was not who the immigrants where, but the sheer number of them.
Powell repeated this focus on numbers in almost all of his speeches
on immigration: again and again and again I come back to the fact
that this is a matter of numbers (Powell and Collings, 1991, p.
398). The reason Powell was so focused on the numbers was
because he believed that, as they increased, both types of issue

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that British citizens have with immigrants (strained public services,

communalism) would increase in severity. Powell viewed the
toleration shown by the British people from 1958-1968 towards
immigration as beyond all praise (ibid., p. 396), but stressed that
there is always a limit to toleration of anyinvasion(ibid.).
However, Powell perceived the main potential danger as most likely
to come from communalism: the danger that if there is a large and
increasing concentration of unassimilated immigrants in certain
areas of the country, tolerance will break down and there will be
violence (ibid., p. 398). Thus, Powell envisaged race wars similar to
those seen in the US coming to Britain, as his most famous quote
from the 1968 Rivers of Blood speech suggests: [a]s I look ahead, I
am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see the River
Tiber foaming with much blood (Howard of Rising, 2012, p. 179).
This prediction of violence and race wars made the obligation
to bring up the issue of mass immigration even greater as Powell
saw that [t]he supreme function of statesmanship is to provide
against preventable evils (ibid., p. 172). However, this function was
not limited to representing the interests of his constituents alone.
Instead Powell saw his opposition to immigration as a higher duty
due to the potential disastrous outcomes, [w]hat I have said, I
have said in the interest of all (Powell and Collings, 1991, p. 405).
Thus, Powell clearly viewed it as his duty, not just to his
constituents, but to the nation as well, to speak up on immigration,
all I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great
betrayal (Howard of Rising, 2012, p. 179).
For Powell, this great betrayal came at the hands of the
liberal elite due to their silence on the issue. According to Powell,
the ministers throughout the 1960s had been seriously misled on
the immigration figures (Powell and Wood, 1972a, p. 196).
However, when the true figures appeared, the Labour Government
of the late 1960s tried to sweep it under the carpet (ibid., p. 195).
Powell was forgiving of the original error, however now that the

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true figure had become known to the government, he said there

was no excuse for silence as, [t]hat excuse has run its course (ibid,
p. 199). Powells critique of the liberal governing elite on this issue
demonstrated the strength of his republicanism for his antiliberalism:
The Government now has a clear moral duty to tell the country
what, to the best of its knowledge and understanding, will be the
future composition and distribution of the population of this
countryfor no government has the moral right to alter, or permit
to be altered, the character and the identity of a nation without
that nations knowledge and without that nations will. It is a moral
issue, and it is a supreme issue. (Powell and Wood, 1972a, p. 199,
emphasis added)

Thus, the fact that Powell saw the liberal elite try and keep
everyone quiet on the issue of immigration, while Powell was trying
to raise it, is probably one of the most important parts of his antiliberalism. For Powell, this great betrayal of the nation really was
occurring in Westminster; and it created a gulf in the nation
between the majorities of English citizens on the one hand, and the
liberal, governing elite on the other. Powell stood with the former:
I mean the gulf between the overwhelming majority of people
throughout the country on the one side, and on the other side a
tiny minority, with almost a monopoly hold upon the channels of
communication, who seem determined not to know the facts and
not to face the realities and who will resort to any device or
extremity to blind both themselves and others. (Powell, 1969, p.
227)

In conclusion, we see that the term anti-liberalism is

adequate in understanding Powells opposition to mass immigration
in post-war Britain. However, Powells anti-liberalism is strongly

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linked with his republicanism, which is fundamentally more

important to Powell in a moral sense. Therefore, when we view
Powells anti-liberalism through the lens of his republicanism, we
get a far richer understanding of Powells opposition to mass
immigration in post-war Britain than if we were to just look at it as
anti-liberal alone.
Word Count: 1,965

References
Burke, E. (1774) Speech to the Electors of Bristol [online]. .
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http://press-

pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html
Cowling, M. (ed.) (1978) Conservative Essays, 1st Edition. London:
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Cowling, M. (1980) Religion and public doctrine in modern
England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foot, P. (1998) Beyond the Powell [online]. . Available from:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/footpaul/1998/03/powell.htm
Howard of Rising, G. P. C. H. (ed.) (2012) Enoch at 100: a reevaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell.
London: Biteback.
Powell, E. and Wood, J. (1972a) Still to Decide. London: Batsford.

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Powell, E. and Wood, J. (1972b) Still to Decide: Speeches, New

Edition. Place of publication not identified: Elliot Right Way
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Powell, J. E. (1969) Freedom and reality. London: Batsford.
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Schofield, C. (2013) Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial
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Stapleton, J. (2014) T.E. Utley and renewal of conservatism in postwar Britain, Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 20726.