Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

[bovlomov]

Some self-identified 'native' British people have a fear that their culture is being diluted,

They are right about that, but the main cause is American mass media, not any influence of immigrants.

Quite right! That did cross my mind.

I'd regret losing our treasure of American music, but it is rather sad that most English people find it difficult to sing a song in their own accent. Even very young children learn that popular songs are to be sung with US vowels.

But what does Powell have to say about that? Nothing!!!!*

*Actually, I imagine he hated pop music.

[thirdcrank]

One point I've been trying to make a about good old Enoch, is that it's a particular kind of racism, based on centuries of Empire and colonialism. Did "red indians" welcome white men with open arms in the cause of integration? Apparently not. Ditto Zulus in Africa and Aborigines in Australia? They didn't understand what a great favour was being bestowed on them.

The Empire was happy to shift people about. eg "West Indians" - the people with black faces in the Caribbean - are the descendants of slaves shipped from Africa largely on British ships to be bought by British farmers. During two world wars, we were happy as a nation when all these various British subjects - whatever their colour or creed - fought for our Empire to the extent that we saw it as their duty to do so. The perceived problems only arose when, as British Subjects, they came to Britain.

"Second generation" migrants have been mentioned which is something of a contradiction. The second generation are natives. We got in a twist over this with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 which was largely an attempt to keep out British Subjects whose skin was not white, while leaving the door open to second generation British migrants from other parts of the former Empire. Incidentally, one unintended consequence was a spike in the migration of those with a right of entry beating the deadline, especially women joining single men who might well have returned home in other circumstances. No matter what your intentions, it's harder to integrate AKA disappear into a wider society, when you are not white.

In Powell's case, there's also a clever class-based appeal to ordinary people suggesting that their interests are aligned with those of "their betters." A situation grossly caricatured by Alf Garnett.

[Vorpal]

I wonder if you would mind giving me some broad indication of where you live, i.e. inner city London or a rural village in Somerset, for example. Certainly as far as Leicester is concerned, I can assure you that a very large percentage of the more expensive houses are “Asian” owned, including many of the properties in the “best” locations. Yes, many Asians also live in terraced housing (most of it owned by Asian landlords). The suggestion that the non-white ethnic majority is confined to the poor housing is simply not true here. Many whites live in ex-council housing. If you aren’t familiar with the city, I could conduct you on a bike ride and you could see for yourself (some nice cycling, BTW ).

I am an immigrant twice over; a dual British - American citizen who was born and raised in the US, but married a Briton and had both my children in the UK. We now live in Norway. I lived for 10 years in a rural village in Essex (2002 to 2012). Most of my friends and family in the UK live in Suffolk, Essex, and London, though a few are scattered elsewhere, and I have visited many places in the UK during my life. In the 90s, for example, I did several stints of a few weeks at a time working in Doncaster.

I wasn't, by the way, trying to suggest that ethnic minorities are confined to 'poor housing'. However, statistically blacks and ethnic minorities are likely to earn less, and more likely to live in poverty, and therefore be less able to climb the property ladder. That is true, even if they are well educated.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ld-careers
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 97066.html
http://www.irr.org.uk/research/statistics/poverty/

I don't know Leicester at all.

[bovlomov]

Someone should ask the PM what she thinks about Powell's speech. Her government's treatment of the Windrush generation might be a clue.

[thirdcrank]

Only nitpicking here, but it's somehow significant to me that the vessel was the HMT Empire Windrush.

FWIW, I've had to look up HMT and it's nothing to do with His Majesty. It's said to mean "hired military transport."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_prefix

I've discovered a bit about this vessel's history prior to 1948 when it achieved a certain notoriety.

It seems that pre-war it had been a German cruise ship, with that good old German name MV Monte Rosa. Among other wartime duties, it was used as an army barracks at Stettin - the destination for a lot of slave labour - and later transported migrants from Norway - Jews going to Auschwitz.

It was seized by the British forces at the end of the war, when "Empire" was still real.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMT_Empire_Windrush
====================================================================
PS I got so engrossed in the Empire that I forgot about the news item which triggered this.

It looks like another example of earlier generations of politicians being better at talking than acting. I'm not suggesting for a moment that anybody who arrived as a child many decades ago whose immigration status is unclear should be deported now or that they should have been then. Just that in spite of all the talk, this part of the underlying situation was ignored.

[horizon]

One point I've been trying to make a about good old Enoch, is that it's a particular kind of racism, based on centuries of Empire and colonialism.

In Powell's case, there's also a clever class-based appeal to ordinary people suggesting that their interests are aligned with those of "their betters." A situation grossly caricatured by Alf Garnett.

+1 Spot on. Powell was a bit of a one-off. He wasn't from a middle-class background IMV, but somewhat shakier lower middle class. It might have been that his real sense of class security depended on the Empire and there being a lower class than his own over which he had precedence based on colour, language and place - i.e. being at home in the UK. His education cemented his position. All that was threatened in post-war Britain.

As for working class people, they had a set of concerns utterly different from his: they lived cheek by jowl with a cultural set of values that kept their communities coherent and they would struggle (as they still do) to accept and indeed cope with change.

It was a strange but useful alliance - he could articulate their concerns while they could provide him with the evidence of cultural hardship.

[bovlomov]

It looks like another example of earlier generations of politicians being better at talking than acting. I'm not suggesting for a moment that anybody who arrived as a child many decades ago whose immigration status is unclear should be deported now or that they should have been then. Just that in spite of all the talk, this part of the underlying situation was ignored.

That's true, but the issue was raised again months* ago, when May and the Home Office were warned about the consequences of May's 'hostile environment' policy. May has ignored all pleas since. It is only now that there seems to be some action - perhaps someone has told May that it's best not to antagonise the Commonwealth countries that she is relying on to save us after Brexit. Too late, I imagine.

For politicians between then and now it wasn't an issue, so they could easily ignore it. May, herself, made it an issue, yet she chose to ignore the consequences. It feels like there's an empathy deficit at no. 10.

*EDIT - Years ago, actually. 2014, when the Home Secretary was Theresa May. They've known about the problem but have continued to deport people and ruin lives.

[thirdcrank]

Amber Rudd is reported to have apologised.

Amber Rudd: Windrush generation treatment 'appalling'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43780621

[bovlomov]

Amber Rudd is reported to have apologised.

Amber Rudd: Windrush generation treatment 'appalling'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43780621

She is only apologising because she is feeling the heat. She should have done it when she first knew about the problem.

[Cyril Haearn]

It is one thing to move to another European country as Vorpal and I have done
I do not live in a ghetto and I could speak the language already, not many British people here*
Norway, Germany, France &c are really not so strange and different

Imagine moving from GB to Pakistan or Bolivia, that would be strange and hard, one would need all the support one could get

From Germany or Norway one can travel 'home' in a few hours
Many immigrants from poor countries could not visit home until they had been in the UK many years

*Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist: 'I do like being in Germany, one does not meet many Norwegians there* %)

[thirdcrank]

... She is only apologising because she is feeling the heat. She should have done it when she first knew about the problem.

She's blamed the problem on Home Office officials and I'd refer to the Blond Buffoon thread and my reference to David Blunkett there. We have a system of ministerial responsibility where it's the minister rather than the officials who are responsible for what goes on. It's obviously impossible in the modern world for a minister to be aware of everything going on in their department, but they should give strong guidance on government policy to their officials and make sure that on the bigger things like this that policy is being carried out. Otherwise, a minister's role is redundant. It's hard to get away from the feeling that the Home Secretary who was the architect of this was the current Prime Minister.

[bovlomov]

... She is only apologising because she is feeling the heat. She should have done it when she first knew about the problem.

She's blamed the problem on Home Office officials and I'd refer to the Blond Buffoon thread and my reference to David Blunkett there. We have a system of ministerial responsibility where it's the minister rather than the officials who are responsible for what goes on. It's obviously impossible in the modern world for a minister to be aware of everything going on in their department, but they should give strong guidance on government policy to their officials and make sure that on the bigger things like this that policy is being carried out. Otherwise, a minister's role is redundant. It's hard to get away from the feeling that the Home Secretary who was the architect of this was the current Prime Minister.

Sometimes one feels that a minister has been unlucky, being tripped up by an issue that emerges without warning. In this case, the issue was flagged up several times - starting with the first proposal to tighten the legislation, and again every time an unfortunate individual got into to trouble. Rudd knew about this. So did May, being (as you say) the architect.

Interesting that Rudd is now saying "I am concerned the Home Office might have become lost in policy and strategy and lost sight of the individual."

It's only what has been obvious for years, but it's a start.

[thirdcrank]

Somebody who has no understanding of the phrase "The buck stops here."

Kept in office by her parliamentary party knowing that the alternative leaders are generally worse and that the first sign of disunity will put them in Opposition. It's quite a feat to upset both ends of the immigration spectrum at once.

[bovlomov]

It's quite a feat to upset both ends of the immigration spectrum at once.

Before the referendum, voices calling for any sort of repatriation were very few indeed. Concerns about immigration were mostly about reducing the flow of immigrants, with a minority calling for a complete halt. Talk about sending people back was the preserve of far right groups. I'm not sure, but hadn't even the BNP recognised the rights of existing immigrants to remain here? Since the referendum the issue has become muddied by the 'bargaining chips' rhetoric, but even so, few are calling for repatriations.

So what's May up to, causing so much hardship and worry for so little political gain?

Home Secretaries (as discussed above) have got used to talking tougher than they act, to appeal to certain groups of voters. Is it that May hadn't understood the game: i.e., there is a necessary gap between rhetoric and action? Or was she consciously trying to appeal to Powellite nostalgia? Did she see in anti-immigration headlines a widespread support for mass deportations (something I think Sun and Mail leader writers never dreamed of)?

Yes, you are right. It takes some skill to offend the Mail with over-zealous immigration rules.

[reohn2]

Yep a bunch of incompetents becoming more incompetent seemingly by the day.
You couldn't make it up as,they say....