How Enoch Powell was a pioneer of Welsh devolution
Martin Shipton
One of the most controversial figures in 20th Century British politics played a crucial role in kick-starting moves towards Welsh devolution, according to a new book.
Conservative MP Enoch Powell became notorious after making a 1968 speech in which he predicted that immigration would lead to “rivers of blood” in the UK.
Born in Birmingham of Welsh descent, he was a classical scholar who learnt Welsh and wrote academic papers in the language. He served in the army in World War Two, enlisting as a private and rising to become a brigadier.
After his “rivers of blood” speech, he was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet by future Prime Minister Ted Heath and became seen as a maverick outsider. Later he became an Ulster Unionist MP and died in 1998 at the age of 85.
After the war, before entering Parliament in 1950 as the MP for Wolverhampton South West, Powell was a researcher working for the Tory party.
Professor
In his book The Conservative Party in Wales 1945-1997, Sam Blaxland writes: “A key moment happened in 1947, when the party’s Research Department sent their Wales policy specialist, a highly intelligent young brigadier, on a journey around the nation to report back on what was happening there. He was Enoch Powell, who had risen to be one of the youngest ever professors of Greek, at the age of 25 at the University of Sydney.
“His Wales tour took in almost every part of the country and he wrote up two reports on the ‘industrial’ and the ‘rural’ scenes there. Powell’s work demonstrated his trademark sharpness of mind. He noted that many Welsh seats, especially the rural ones, would be “solidly Conservative” were they in England. He argued that there existed in Wales a distinct political dynamic. Opponents of the Conservatives played upon the fact that social, religious and cultural factors meant the Tories were often perceived as strangers there. He also noted that patterns of living, and a sense of community, were especially strong in Wales, with people in industrial areas ‘clinging to their pithead settlements, or house rows, however unsatisfactory, with a more than aboriginal attachment’.
Special
“He continued that ‘a policy which disregards these prejudices, inconvenient and hampering though they may be, will evoke little response in south Wales’. He understood, however, how and why parts of Wales were different. Powell concluded that Wales had both special ‘needs’ and a special ‘outlook’, which had to be addressed more specifically by the Conservatives. Although he warned against over-promising anything for fear of looking like the party was ‘vote catching’, he stressed that many people in rural Wales ‘use habitually and for preference a language that is not English’. Therefore agriculture and rural roads needed support, and better facilities for the use of Welsh were called for. In the ‘terra incognita’ [unknown land] of ‘industrial Wales’, Powell called for a new kind of economic policy that was both ‘radical and fresh’, which should pivot on better housing, education – because ‘industrial problems cannot be solved or even understood except in the context of social conditions’ – and industrial diversification.”
For Blaxland, though, the most important thrust of Powell’s argument rested on the idea of representation. He writes: “While many of the significant things that his report mentioned about industry and the economy sounded quite a lot like what the Labour government was proposing, this element was different.
“Powell thought that a dedicated government Minister for Welsh Affairs was necessary. It became official policy in the late 1940s, announced by RA Butler – later Chancellor of the Exchequer – in the House of Commons and at the party’s 1948 conference in Llandudno. Powell’s report was formally written up in the fully bilingual pamphlet called The Charter for Wales, which was released on St David’s Day 1949. It was part of a series of other documents, the most prominent being the Industrial Charter, which formed the basis of the Conservatives’ policy positions in the late 1940s. It is significant that one was devoted specifically to Wales, sitting alongside other documents on big topics like agriculture and imperial policy. The pledge of a minister, alongside warm words of Welsh industry, hill farmers, culture and the language, featured in the party’s 1950 and 1951 general election manifestos. When the Tories won in 1951, they duly introduced the Minister for Welsh Affairs, with senior party figures presenting the post as the ‘watchdog for Wales’.
Blaxland goes on to write how many more Tories mentioned Welsh-specific policies in their election addresses at the beginning of the 1950s – 18 in 1950, compared to only five Labour candidates. The change was welcomed by Welsh newspapers. Blaxland states: “No doubt buoyed by such coverage, party officials thought that Powell had ‘more than justified the expense of his journey.
“Powell was certainly the key intellectual driving force behind convincing the party that Wales needed specific governmental representation. In arguing that a minister was essential, he is no doubt a significant architect of administrative devolution in Wales, if only because he helped create the conditions that spurred on further processes over the next several decades.
“A post like a Minister for Welsh Affairs would probably have been created eventually, but Powell was able to articulate the case for it, deploying his ability to understand both Wales and the Welsh language – although as an Ulster Unionist MP much later in his career, he would become increasingly hostile to the idea of devolution.”
In 1964, when Labour returned to power, the post of Secretary of State for Wales was created, a further step on the road to devolution.
Drawing on Conservative Party archives, with many details that have not previously been published, Blaxland’s book provides an insightful and nuanced view of the party in Wales during a period of great social change.
The Conservative Party in Wales 1945-1997 by Sam Blaxland is published by University of Wales Press at £24.99.
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Enoch Powell was the equivalent of David TC Davies. Both had the speak Cymraeg, one had a fear of black & Asian people, the other hater of Gypsies. And saying Powell was a catalyst for devolution is stretching it a bit. And I can think of far better examples like Plaid’s first MP Gwynfor Evans than than one who watched on as Tryweryn was flooded for English water consumption, a man who spouted rivers of blood seeing if it were not for immigrants our NHS would be on its knees and 10,000s would have perished due to Covid if it… Read more »
What did we get: Rivers of Sewage…
Indeed. Rivers of sludge.
When Enoch Powell held the cabinet post as Health Minister it was his department that issued passports for people from the Commonwealth to come and work in the NHS.
The Rivers of Blood Speach was an act of opportunism that badly backfired on him.After the Conservative party got rid of Powell they went on to win the 1970 General election.
And that’s the ironic thing. Post-WW2 due to shortages of manpower, reason being 10,000s were killed in combat fighting, those from the former British colonies were invited to work in our hospitals, factories, drive buses, clean toilets ect… that kept Britain afloat. For example. Take the recent Brexit vote. The Conservative ERG bemoaned freedom of movement when we were still part of the EU even though most had businesses & farms who employed migrants workers. Comparisons can also be made to those immigrants from the West Indies who aided our economy with their labour. They too made businesses lots of… Read more »
This is really interesting. There is a tendency to think that the starting point for the devolution process began with the Secretary of State for Wales in 1964 (I have been guilty of that). The fact that the Tories created a Wales ministerial position (albeit short of SOS status) before this needs to be acknowledged as it is part of the narrative. Powell may have been part of the process but no doubt there were others. The fact that Powell can.be regarded as loathsome for other reasons doesn’t alter the fact of that Tory contribution. I wonder why the Tories… Read more »
The answer to your rhetorical question is simple – They are too focussed on some warped version of “the past” which allows them to overlook facts. Some of those old Tories would be horrified at what passes for their party nowadays. Indeed most of what the Tories have stood for since 1979 would arouse opposition. Powell is probably one of the foremost examples of a fine mind who managed to come out with absurd statements from time to time.
An interesting fact about Enoch Powell.
He was against the UK having nuclear weapons. Not because he was in any way negative about defence, he said that despite years of questioning it was never satisfactorily explained to him any conditions under which such weapons would be used.
I met him & had heard he spoke Welsh 🏴 & tried talking to him in Welsh; he couldn’t. He then said ‘I speak classic Welsh’ or something I said ‘fine let’s talk in classic Welsh’ again he couldn’t. He smelt of moth balls & was cantankerous.
He definitely speaks Cymraeg : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynf2W6EcGgc
Doesn’t change what he was.
A man we should have listened to. We need positive immigration instead we have a mass of chucking their passports overboard and pretending to be Christians.
I Beg your Pardon i had to give my Head a wobble when i read that do not like speaking ill of the dead but met him once when serving in the Army in Northern Ireland Not what i would call a HUMAN BEING
The subject of this article was a vile “man”!
The only decent thing he did was in 1998, just a shame he waited until he was 85!