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Enoch Powell

283 quotes

“Keynes is dead!”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (26 November 1971), quoted in The Times (29 November 1971), p. 13
“[Parliament's] uniqueness lies in its virtually uninterrupted exercise of sovereignty through the centuries, so that, in the modern world of written constitutions and artificially erected representative assemblies, there is no other nation which is one with its parliament as we are. Among all the countries of Europe there is no other of which it could be said that its history would be unintelligible, almost non-existent, if the history of its parliament were removed.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January 1972), quoted in The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (1973), pp. 50–51
“Such is, and will be seen to be, the effect of the legislation which the House of Commons must accept if the Treaty of Accession is to be ratified. It will be asked to divest itself of the unrestricted competence and authority which it has gained and maintained over centuries, and which the people of Britain regard as the guarantee of their national independence and political liberties.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January 1972), quoted in The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (1973), pp. 52–53
“For this House, lacking the necessary authority either out-of-doors or indoors, legislatively to give away the independence and sovereignty of this House now and for the future is an unthinkable act. Even if there were not those outside to whom we have to render account, the very stones of this place would cry out against us if we dared such a thing. We are here acting not only collectively but as individuals; and each hon. Member takes his own responsibility upon himself—as I do, when I say for myself "It shall not pass".”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Second Reading of the European Communities Bill (17 February 1972)
“Week by week, month by month, the House of Commons votes to divest itself of what it had gained through a length of time not much shorter than the history of England itself, the trophies of its past struggles, the prizes of conflicts which will be renowned as long as English history is read.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery on the European Communities Bill (13 May 1972), quoted in A Nation or No Nation? Six Years in British Politics (1977), p. 41
“[W]ith a floating rate we should still have to cope with our own domestic inflation. Of course, with a floating rate we cannot guarantee this or that rate of increase in our domestic product. But, with a floating rate, of this we can be sure, that we shall not artificially, for the sake of a shibboleth and a fetish, impose upon this country alternately the evils of deflation and of inflation, that we shall not go on repeating the bad film seen so often during the last 25 years.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (29 June 1972)
“The plantation of Ulster, right or wrong, wise or unwise, beneficent or not, did take place; neither it nor its consequences can be pretended out of existence. The people of this province are part of the British nation, and the soil of this province is British soil, because the great majority of its inhabitants are so minded.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech quoted in 'Is he the alternative?', The Economist (8 July 1972), p. 19
“Does my right hon. Friend not know that it is fatal for any Government or party or person to seek to govern in direct opposition to the principles on which they were entrusted with the right to govern? In introducing a compulsory control of wages and prices, in contravention of the deepest commitments of this party, has my right hon. Friend taken leave of his senses?”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Question to the Prime Minister Edward Heath in the House of Commons (6 November 1972)
“The connection between the control of inflation and unemployment is that if a substantial level of inflation is in operation and that level is reduced, then to that extent it is inevitable that transitionally unemployment should result. I say again: it is inevitable that controlling inflation, in the sense of reducing or eliminating it, causes transitional unemployment... It arises from the disappointment of the expectations which are maintained during a period of inflation.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (7 November 1972)
“With this Bill my right hon. Friends continue their pursuit of one of the hoariest futilities in the recorded history of politics, the attempt to use coercion in some form or other to prevent the laws of supply and demand from expressing themselves in terms of prices.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons against the Counter-Inflation Bill, which introduced stage 2 of the government's prices and incomes policy (29 January 1973)
“We must judge ourselves, but we may not judge others, even though I find it difficult to understand how those who argued, as we did in the last Parliament, against something essentially indistinguishable from this Bill, who denounced it in principle and who forswore anything of the sort when they presented themselves to the electorate, can support it now. Still, we must all answer ourselves. Therefore, I answer the question now, as I shall in the Lobby tonight, by saying that for myself I can not.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons against the Counter-Inflation Bill, which introduced stage 2 of the government's prices and incomes policy (29 January 1973)
“Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price. It is worth living for; it is worth fighting for; and it is worth dying for.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Stockport (8 June 1973), quoted in The Times (9 June 1973), p. 3
“The right finds it easy to explain what is and to justify what is, but not to account for change. The left finds it easy to justify change, but not to account for what is, and what is accepted.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the BBC Radio 4 series Politics in the Seventies (10 June 1973), quoted in The Times (11 June 1973), p. 3
“Parties come and go, governments come and go. But if we lose the power to make and unmake governments, to make and unmake parliaments, then everything else is changed. Even if I were convinced that the result of doing what Michael Foot has described—regaining what we ought never to have given away—even if I were convinced that the result of that would be that we would have Labour administrations for the rest of my lifetime, I would say: well, so be it. But at least we have retained the power to decide under what general principles this nation is going to be governed.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing Britain's membership of the EEC on the BBC Radio 4 series Politics in the Seventies (10 June 1973), quoted in The Times (11 June 1973), p. 3
“I was born ambitious, I suppose I shall die ambitious. I can no more change it than the colour of my eyes.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Russell Harty Plus, ITV (1973), excerpted in "Odd Man Out", BBC TV profile by Michael Cockerell transmitted on 11 November 1995
“The dilemma is this: they know, and we know, that if the rate of inflation is to be reduced, at whatever rate my right hon. and learned Friend later this afternoon announces is the Government's intention, then the result of that, for the time being, must be a slowing down of the rate of economic growth and a slowing down, to put it mildly, in the fall in unemployment. That is the known and certain consequence of reducing the rate of inflation—not of the way in which it is done but of the fact that it happens.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (17 October 1973)
“It is deeply worrying that at a time when past budgetary policies have carried Britain deeper and deeper into inflation, and when the world is waiting to see whether we have the resolution to deal with inflation at its source, more and more symptoms appear that the Government has withdrawn into a world of make-believe of its own, in which disasters are transferred into successes, and responsibility and blame are transferred from where they belong on to synthetic obstacles and enemies.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in London (29 November 1973), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), p. 683
“[T]o reduce the rate of inflation in an economy from something like 10 per cent. to any figure which we would dare to regard as tolerable, cannot but be accompanied by severe stresses, one of which will be an increase in unemployment. That does not derive from the method by which it is done. It derives from the fact that it is done.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (18 December 1973)
“What I have learned and what I fervently believe is that neither high and stable levels of employment nor prosperity nor anything that a nation can desire is to be obtained by debauching its currency; that the mere manufacture of additional money, the mere process of inflation, though it may create temporary euphoria, is no basis upon which, for any class in the community, security or prosperity can be built. It is in that belief and in the belief that it is demonstrated by history that I speak as I do.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (10 January 1974)
“Could my right hon. Friend explain why the increase in oil prices is deflationary but the increase in all other international prices has apparently been inflationary?”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber in the House of Commons (6 February 1974)
“Now there are a lot of people about whom it behoves to be very cautious in accusing their political opponents of past or prospective U-turns. In acrobatics Harold Wilson, for all his nimbleness and skill, is simply no match for the breathtaking, thoroughgoing efficiency of the present Prime Minister [Heckler: "Judas!"] Judas was paid! Judas was paid! I am making a sacrifice!”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Shipley, Yorkshire (25 February 1974), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), pp. 708-709
“I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. It is part of me...it is something I cannot alter.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Shipley, Yorkshire (25 February 1974), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), p. 709
“It is because everywhere else in Christendom the state has been rebuilt within the last two hundred years upon principles which derive sovereignty from elsewhere than the monarch...that Britain is today the only surviving state which exercises spiritual as well as temporal authority and where sovereignty is ecclesiastical as well as secular... For us alone the identity of nation and Church survives in the symbolism of historical forms, and the link between spiritual and secular sovereignty is still, despite everything, a living reality.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'God Save the Queen', sermon to the St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London (26 November 1974), quoted in Wrestling with the Angel (1977), pp. 78-79
“God save the Queen"... is the distinctive self-assertion, come what may, of one nation against the rest; she is not their Queen, she is our Queen, and her allegiance marks us off as a separate people.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'God Save the Queen', sermon to the St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London (26 November 1974), quoted in Wrestling with the Angel (1977), p. 80
“As I watch and listen to the voices that are raised to persuade electors to surrender their own birthright because they fear their fellow subjects, I think I discern ahead the shape of a Conservative Party that is the party of a class, and not of a nation – and thus doomed to extinction.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian (12 May 1975), quoted in Robert Shepherd, Enoch Powell (1997), p. 464
“Never again, by the necessity of an axiom, will an Englishman live for his country or die for his country: the country for which people live and die was obsolete and we have abolished it. Or not quite yet. No, not yet. The Referendum is not a ‘verdict’ after which the prisoner is hanged forthwith. It is no more than provisional... This will be so as long as one Parliament can alter or undo whatever that or any other Parliament has done. Hence those golden words in the Government's Referendum pamphlet: ‘Our continued membership will depend on the continuing assent of Parliament.’”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Daily Telegraph (9 June 1975), quoted in David Butler and Uwe Kitzinger, The 1975 Referendum (1976), p. 274
“I do not know if the doctrine that the nation-state arose in the 19th century was still being taught ... but it is erroneous. The nation-state reaches back far into the origins of Europe itself and perhaps beyond. If Europe was not always a Europe of nations, it was always a Europe in which nations existed, and were taken for granted, as a basic form of the State.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Daily Telegraph (9 June 1975), quoted in Enoch Powell on 1992 (1989), p. 144
“Inflation is caused by a continuing surfeit of money; inflation can therefore be controlled or prevented only by striking at the source of money surfeit. It follows that all prices and incomes policies are irrelevant and futile, whether they are voluntary or compulsory. If the surfeit of money continues, then all prices and incomes must rise accordingly.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Arundel Young Conservatives in Littlehampton (20 June 1975), quoted in The Times (21 June 1975), p. 3
“There is the guilty knowledge that a fall in the rate of inflation must be accompanied by a rise in the rate of unemployment and that a sharp fall from a high rate of inflation must have severe consequences, which are inescapable. This is because an economy geared to inflation at 25 per cent per annum has to undergo a terrific readjustment to change to expectation of only 15 per cent or 10 per cent per annum inflation. Since inflation cannot go on up for ever, this prospect is inescapable.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Arundel Young Conservatives in Littlehampton (20 June 1975), quoted in The Times (21 June 1975), p. 3
“To be loyal is, for the Unionist, to accept the will of Parliament as expressed in the law of the land, which is made by the Crown in Parliament... What, however, no person who calls himself a Unionist can do without self-contradiction, is to place limits or conditions upon his obedience to the Crown in Parliament. He cannot say: "If Parliament makes laws I do not like, I will not obey them". He cannot say: "Unless Parliament amends the present laws in the way I want, I will go off and declare myself independent".”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Kilkeel, County Down (5 July 1975), quoted in The Times (7 July 1975), p. 2
“It would be hard nowadays to find a practitioner who upon being pressed did not confess to two main propositions: the disease of inflation in its modern form is caused by an exorbitant increase in money; and, secondly, that increase is caused by governments borrowing from the banking system in order to cover excess public expenditure.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Tyneside Junior Chamber of Commerce in Newcastle (6 October 1975), quoted in The Times (7 October 1975), p. 2
“The devolution debate will be based upon a proposition no less objectively false than to assert that two and two make five. It is the proposition that it is possible to establish one or more local parliaments within the unitary parliamentary state known as the United Kingdom.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the City Conservative Forum in London (12 November 1975), quoted in The Times (13 November 1975), p. 4
“My own view—I will put it more strongly: my conviction—is that the death penalty would not only not be a deterrent to terrorism but would be a stimulus to terrorism. It would not be a deterrent...because...we are dealing with men the very nature of whose activity is that they are prepared to risk their lives.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill (26 November 1975)
“I often find myself in some embarrassment as an Anglican wondering whether I am a Catholic or a Protestant.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (16 February 1976)
“In 1940 the voice which cried "Speak for England" came from a Tory bench. It comes from there no longer... The Conservative Party declared that the nation state as exemplified by an independent and self-governing United Kingdom was obsolete. Thereby for me the Conservative Party ceased to be the Conservative Party which I thought I knew.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Young Conservatives in Kensington (30 September 1976), quoted in The Times (1 October 1976), p. 12
“Like the Home Rule Bills of Gladstone and Asquith, not one of which was ever put into practice, the Scotland and Wales Bill contains at its heart a contradiction not merely insoluble but destructive. It sets up parliaments in parts of the kingdom, but allows the MPs from those parts to make law for the rest of the country upon the self same subjects over which legislative power is transferred to the new parliaments.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Whiteabbey, South Antrim on the Scotland Bill and the Wales Bill (6 January 1977), quoted in The Times (7 January 1977), p. 2
“Through my childhood and adolescence the land and the buildings of England and Wales were perceived by me always somehow in a fourth dimension, the dimension of time, as if they were the stage and scenery of the long epic of the English kings. The predominant role of the monarchy and its bearers was as unifiers: they seemed to be the nation-creators, and later the empire-creators, both actively, by force and policy, and passively, as the unifying focus of sentiment and the source of lawful authority.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Patriotism', sermon to the St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London (18 January 1977), quoted in Wrestling with the Angel (1977), p. 2
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain (1977), p. 151
“Christianity does not, repeat, not, look forward to a gradual betterment of human behaviour and society or to the progressive spread of peace and justice upon earth. Still less does Christianity purport to offer a scheme or general outline for bringing that about. Quite the reverse, it uniformly teaches, as if to emphasize the point for good measure, that things will get worse rather than better before we are through.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wrestling with the Angel (1977), p. 61
“It is one of history's most mocking ironies that the German customs union, which set out to dominate Europe and conquer Britain in the form of Bismarckian or Hitlerian military force, has at last vanquished the victor by drawing Britain into a Zollverein which comprises Western Europe and aspires to comprise the Mediterranean as well. If the ghosts of the Hohenzollerns come back to haunt this planet, they must find a lot to laugh at.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Grimsby (20 May 1977), quoted in Enoch Powell on 1992 (1989), p. 93
“Of course I am very proud of being a Tory. Yes, in my head and in my heart I regard myself as a Tory. As I have said, I was born that way; I believe it is congenital. I am unable to change it. That is how I see the world... [The EEC] is the most un-Tory thing that can be conceived.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Brian Walden (29 January 1978), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), p. 800
“[Conservative Party bosses are] Athenian oligarchs who would always sacrifice culture for class.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with David Butler (1978), quoted in Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography, Volume One: Not For Turning (2013), p. 383
“The TUC are about as desirous of providing an alternative government to the Crown in Parliament as the Chiefs of Staff... The fear of domination by trade union power is among the most divisive and the most spurious.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Eastbourne (2 June 1978), quoted in The Times (3 June 1978), p. 2
“Robin Day: So you would say, would you – I hope I am not misrepresenting you – that the question of parliamentary sovereignty and national sovereignty as affected by our membership of the EEC, is the issue on which you would like to see most people have as their reason for voting one way or the other? Enoch Powell: Yes, for – in peace as in war, it is the great, the ultimate, question for any nation. If we still are a nation. So really I am inviting the British people and have been these many years, to say whether or not they intend still to be a nation.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Parliamentarians, BBC TV (4 February 1979), quoted in Reflections of a Statesman: The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), p. 263
“Might I indicate the difficulty which some of us feel over collective compassion? The good Samaritan had compassion. If two good Samaritans had compassion, that would still be individual compassion, not collective compassion. If the good Samaritan had been obliged by decree of the Roman Emperor to assist the traveller, that would not be compassion at all, because it would be done under obligation.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (22 May 1979)
“Being a nation is, in the last resort, subjective; those who feel they are a nation and behave accordingly are one.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian (4 June 1979), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), p. 822
“Is the Chancellor aware that I envy him the opportunity and the privilege of announcing a step that will strengthen the economy of this country and help to restore our national pride and confidence in our currency?”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons on the abolition of exchange controls (23 October 1979)
“[The source of continuous hostility to Unionism for years has been] that nest of vipers, that nursery of traitors, which is known as the British Foreign Office.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Orange Lodge in Dundonald, County Down (3 January 1980), quoted in The Times (4 January 1980), p. 3
“If identical goods were being produced at widely differing efficiency in different parts of the United Kingdom or if the United Kingdom and Germany, or Japan, or the United States, were part of a single unit with a single currency, then of course the less efficient producers would be knocked out. That is why Germany is so keen for Britain to go into the European Monetary System, so that it can wipe out the British industries which it is in competition.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in London (21 March 1980), quoted in Enoch Powell on 1992 (1989), p. 97
“The few Roman Catholics who serve in the [[w:Ulster Defence Regiment|[Ulster Defence] regiment]] today are very brave men indeed. They do so at the risk of their lives in a way that their colleagues do not. I am proud to have some of those men in my constituency and to know them personally.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (29 April 1980)