Editing Rivers of Blood speech

{{Short description|1968 speech by the British politician Enoch Powell}}
{{Redirect|Rivers of Blood||River of Blood (disambiguation)|5=}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}}
[[File:Enoch Powell 4 Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Enoch Powell (1912–1998). Portrait by [[Allan Warren]].]]

The "'''Rivers of Blood'''" '''speech''' was made by the British politician [[Enoch Powell]] on 20 April 1968 to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in [[Birmingham]]. In it Powell, who was then [[Shadow Secretary of State for Defence]] in the [[Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)|Shadow Cabinet]] of [[Edward Heath]], strongly criticised the [[Modern immigration to the United Kingdom|rates of immigration]] from the [[Commonwealth of Nations]] (mostly former colonies of the [[British Empire]]) to the United Kingdom since the [[World War II|Second World War]]. He also opposed the Race Relations Bill, an [[Anti-discrimination law|anti-discrimination bill]] which upon receiving [[royal assent]] as the [[Race Relations Act 1968]] criminalised the refusal of housing, employment, or public services to persons on the grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origin. Powell himself called it "the '''Birmingham speech'''"; "Rivers of Blood" alludes to a prophecy from [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' which Powell (a [[Classics|classical]] scholar) quoted:

{{Quote|As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River [[Tiber]] foaming with much blood'.<ref name=h9>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=449; the line in Virgil is Aen. VI, 87: [''et''] ''Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno''.}}</ref>}}

The speech was a national controversy, and it made Powell one of the most talked-about and divisive politicians in Britain. Heath, the [[Leader of the Conservative Party (UK)|leader of the Conservative Party]] at the time, dismissed him from the Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech.<ref name="mac">{{Harvnb|McLean|2001|pp=129–130}}</ref> According to most accounts the popularity of Powell's views on immigration might have been a decisive factor in the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]]'s unexpected victory at the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]], although he became one of the most persistent opponents of the subsequent [[Heath ministry]].<ref name=mac/><ref name=h10>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=568}}</ref>

== Background ==
{{Conservatism UK|Works}}Powell, the [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Wolverhampton South West]] and [[Shadow Secretary of State for Defence]] for the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]], was addressing the general meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre. The [[Labour government, 1964–1970|Labour government]]'s [[Race Relations Act 1968|1968 Race Relations Bill]] was to have its [[second reading]] three days later, and the Conservative [[His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition|Opposition]] had tabled an [[Amend (motion)|amendment]] significantly weakening its provisions.<ref name= "hansard763-53">{{cite hansard | title= Race Relations Bill | url= https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/apr/23/race-relations-bill | house=HC | date=23 April 1968 | column_start= 53 | column_end= 198 |volume= 763}}</ref> The bill was a successor to the [[Race Relations Act 1965]].

The Birmingham-based television company [[Associated Television|ATV]] saw an advance copy of the speech on the Saturday morning, and its news editor ordered a television crew to go to the venue, where they filmed sections of the speech. Earlier in the week, Powell had said to his friend Clem Jones, a journalist and then editor at the [[Wolverhampton]] ''[[Express & Star]]'', "I'm going to make a speech at the weekend and it's going to go up 'fizz' like a rocket; but whereas all rockets fall to the earth, this one is going to stay up."<ref name="mfep">{{cite news |title= My father and Enoch Powell |newspaper= [[Shropshire Star]] |date= 8 October 2016 |page=3 |department = Weekend supplement | first = Nicholas | last = Jones}} Jones's son Nicholas, condensed from book ''What Do We Mean by Local? The Rise, Fall – and Possible Rise Again – of Local Journalism'' (Abramis, 2013).</ref>

In preparing his speech, Powell had applied Jones's advice that to make hard-hitting political speeches and short-circuit interference from his party organisation, his best timing was on Saturday afternoons, after delivering embargoed copies the previous Thursday or Friday to selected editors and political journalists of Sunday newspapers. This tactic could ensure coverage of the speech over three days through Saturday evening bulletins, then Sunday newspapers, thus the coverage would be picked up in Monday newspapers.<ref name=mfep/>

== Speech ==
In the speech Powell recounted a conversation with one of his constituents, a middle-aged working man, a few weeks earlier. Powell said that the man told him: "If I had the money to go, I wouldn't stay in this country... I have three children, all of them been through [[grammar school]] and two of them married now, with family. I shan't be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas." The man finished by saying to Powell: "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man".<ref name=p2>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|p=282}}</ref>

Powell went on:

{{Quote|Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that the country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking—not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen.<ref name=p2/><ref>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|p=283}}</ref>}}

Powell quoted a letter he received from a woman in [[Northumberland]], about an elderly woman living on a Wolverhampton street where she was the only white resident. The woman's husband and two sons had died in the [[Second World War]] and she had rented out the rooms in her house. Once immigrants had moved into the street in which she lived, her white lodgers left. Two black men had knocked on her door at 7:00&nbsp;am to use her telephone to call their employers, but she refused, as she would have done to any other stranger knocking at her door at such an hour, and was subsequently verbally abused. The woman had asked her local authority for a [[Rates (tax)|rates]] reduction, but was told by a council officer to let out the rooms of her house. When the woman said the only tenants would be black, the council officer replied: "Racial prejudice won't get you anywhere in this country."

Powell advocated voluntary re-emigration by "generous grants and assistance" and he mentioned that immigrants had asked him whether it was possible. He said that all citizens should be equal before the law, and that:

{{Quote|This does not mean that the immigrant and his descendants should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow-citizen and another or that he should be subjected to an inquisition as to his reasons and motives for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another.<ref name=p5>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|p=285}}</ref>}}

He argued that journalists who urged the government to pass anti-discrimination laws were "of the same kidney and sometimes on the same newspapers which year after year in the 1930s tried to blind this country to the rising peril which confronted it". Powell described what he perceived to be the evolving position of the [[White British]] population:

{{Quote|For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. On top of this, they now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by Act of Parliament; a law which cannot, and is not intended to, operate to protect them or redress their grievances, is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the ''agent provocateur'' the power to pillory them for their private actions.<ref>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|p=286}}</ref>}}

Powell warned that if the legislation proposed for the then–Race Relations Bill were to be passed it would bring about discrimination against the native population:

{{Quote|The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming. This is why to enact legislation of the kind before parliament at this moment is to risk throwing a match on to gunpowder.<ref name=rivers1>{{cite news |title=Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html |date=6 November 2007 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref>}}

Powell was concerned about the current level of immigration and argued that it must be controlled:

{{Quote|In these circumstances nothing will suffice but that the total inflow for settlement should be reduced at once to negligible proportions, and that the necessary legislative and administrative measures be taken without delay.<ref name=rivers1 />}}

Powell argued that he felt that although "many thousands" of immigrants wanted to integrate, he felt that the majority did not, and that some had vested interests in fostering racial and religious differences "with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population".<ref>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|pp=287–288}}</ref> Powell's [[peroration]] of the speech gave rise to its popular title. He quotes the [[Cumaean Sibyl|Sibyl]]'s prophecy in the epic poem ''[[Aeneid]]'', 6, 86–87, of "Terrible war, and the river Tiber foaming / With streams of blood".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Aeneid by Virgil |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |year=1951 |volume=VI |location=New York |page=146 |translator-last=Humphries |translator-first=Rolfe|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61596/pg61596-images.html#page_146|quote=bella, horrida bella, / et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.|trans-quote= War, I see, / Terrible war, and the river Tiber foaming / With streams of blood.}}</ref>

{{Quote|As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.<ref>{{Harvnb|Powell|1969|pp=289–290}}</ref>}}

== Reaction ==
[[File:Daily Mirror, 22 March 1968.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Many newspapers reacted with hostility to the speech, and the political row that followed was widely covered for many days, as seen here in the ''[[Daily Mirror]]'']]
===Political===
According to C. Howard Wheeldon, who was present at the meeting in which Powell gave the speech, "it is fascinating to note what little hostility emerged from the audience. To the best of my memory, only one person voiced any sign of annoyance."<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=455}}</ref> The day after the speech, Powell went to Sunday Communion at his local church, and when he emerged, there was a crowd of journalists, and a local plasterer said to Powell: "Well done, sir. It needed to be said."<ref>{{Harvnb|Roth|1970|p=357}}</ref> Powell asked the assembled journalists: "Have I really caused such a furore?" At midday, Powell went on the [[BBC]]'s ''[[The World This Weekend|World This Weekend]]'' to defend his speech, and he appeared later that day on [[ITN]] news.

The Labour MP [[Ted Leadbitter]] said he would refer the speech to the [[Director of Public Prosecutions]], and the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] leader [[Jeremy Thorpe]] spoke of a ''[[prima facie]]'' case against Powell for incitement. [[Dora Gaitskell, Baroness Gaitskell|Lady Gaitskell]] called the speech "cowardly", and the West Indian cricketer Sir [[Learie Constantine]] condemned it.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=457}}</ref>

The leading Conservatives in the Shadow Cabinet were outraged by the speech. [[Iain Macleod]], [[Edward Boyle, Baron Boyle of Handsworth|Edward Boyle]], [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Quintin Hogg]] and [[Robert Carr]] all threatened to resign from the front bench unless Powell was dismissed. [[Margaret Thatcher]], who was then the Shadow Cabinet's Fuel and Power Spokesman, thought that some of Powell's speech was "strong meat",<ref>[http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=ac315342-4333-4bcf-8916-fe85d7d21746 "Part 2: Enoch Powell and the 'Rivers of Blood{{'"}}] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511101758/http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=ac315342-4333-4bcf-8916-fe85d7d21746 |date=11 May 2011 }} ''Ottawa Citizen'' (Canada.com), 4 June 2008</ref> and said to the Conservative leader, [[Edward Heath]] when he telephoned her to inform her Powell was to be sacked: "I really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". Heath sacked Powell from his post as Shadow Defence Secretary, telling him on the telephone that Sunday evening. They never spoke to each other again. Heath said of the speech in public that it was "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions". Conservative MPs on the right of the party—[[Duncan Sandys]], [[Gerald Nabarro]], [[Teddy Taylor]]—spoke against Powell's sacking.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=459}}</ref> On 22 April 1968 Heath went on ''[[Panorama (British TV programme)|Panorama]]'', telling [[Robin Day]]: "I dismissed Mr Powell because I believed his speech was inflammatory and liable to damage race relations. I am determined to do everything I can to prevent racial problems developing into civil strife&nbsp;... I don't believe the great majority of the British people share Mr Powell's way of putting his views in his speech."<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=461}}</ref>

''[[The Times]]'' declared it "an evil speech", stating "This is the first time that a serious British politician has appealed to racial hatred in this direct way in our postwar history."<ref>Editorial comment, ''The Times'', 22 April 1968</ref> ''The Times'' went on to record incidents of racial attacks in the immediate aftermath of Powell's speech. One such incident, reported under the headline "Coloured family attacked", took place on 30 April 1968 in Wolverhampton itself: it involved a slashing incident with 14 white youths chanting "Powell" and "Why don't you go back to your own country?" at patrons of a West Indian christening party. One of the West Indian victims, Wade Crooks of Lower Villiers Street, was the child's grandfather. He had to have eight stitches over his left eye. He was reported as saying, "I have been here since 1955 and nothing like this has happened before. I am shattered."<ref>''The Times'', 1 May 1968</ref> An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC television programme ''Panorama'' in December 1968 found that eight per cent of immigrants believed that they had been treated worse by white people since Powell's speech, 38 per cent would like to return to their country of origin if offered financial help, and 47 per cent supported immigration control, with 30 per cent opposed.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=500}}</ref>

The speech generated much correspondence to newspapers, most markedly with the ''[[Express & Star]]'' in [[Wolverhampton]] itself, whose local sorting office over the following week received 40,000 postcards and 8,000 letters addressed to its local newspaper. Jones recalled:

{{Quote|[[Ted Heath]] made a martyr out of Enoch, but as far as ''Express & Star's'' circulation area was concerned, virtually the whole area was determined to make a saint out of him. From the Tuesday through to the end of the week, I had ten, fifteen to twenty bags full of readers' letters: 95 per cent of them were pro-Enoch.<ref name=mfep/>}}

At the end of that week there were two simultaneous processions in Wolverhampton, one of Powell's supporters and another of opponents, who each brought petitions to Jones outside his office, the two columns being kept apart by police.<ref name=mfep/>

On 23 April 1968 the [[Race Relations Act 1968|Race Relations Bill]] had its second reading in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]].<ref name="hansard763-53"/> Many MPs referred or alluded to Powell's speech. For Labour, [[Paul Rose (British politician)|Paul Rose]], [[Maurice Orbach]], [[Reginald Paget]], [[Dingle Foot]], [[Ivor Richard]] and [[David Ennals]] were all critical.<ref name="hansard763-53"/> Among the Conservatives, Quintin Hogg and [[Nigel Fisher]] were critical, while [[Hugh Fraser (British politician)|Hugh Fraser]], [[Ronald Bell (politician)|Ronald Bell]], [[Dudley Smith]] and [[Harold Gurden]] were sympathetic. Powell was present for the debate but did not speak.<ref name="hansard763-53"/>

Earlier that day, 1,000 London [[Dockworker|dockers]] had gone [[on strike]] in protest of Powell's sacking and marched from the [[East End]] to the [[Palace of Westminster]] carrying placards with sayings such as "we want Enoch Powell!", "Enoch here, Enoch there, we want Enoch everywhere", "Don't knock Enoch" and "Back Britain, not Black Britain". Three hundred of them went into the palace, 100 to lobby the MP for [[Stepney (UK Parliament constituency)|Stepney]], [[Peter Shore]], and 200 to lobby the MP for [[Poplar (UK Parliament constituency)|Poplar]], [[Ian Mikardo]]. Shore and Mikardo were shouted down and some dockers kicked Mikardo. Lady Gaitskell shouted: "You will have your remedy at the next election." The dockers replied: "We won't forget."<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=462}}</ref> The organiser of the strike, Harry Pearman, headed a delegation to meet Powell and said after: "I have just met Enoch Powell and it made me feel proud to be an Englishman. He told me that he felt that if this matter was swept under the rug he would lift the rug and do the same again. We are representatives of the working man. We are not racialists."<ref>{{Harvnb|Roth|1970|p=361}}</ref>

On 24 April 600 dockers at [[St Katharine Docks]] voted to strike and numerous smaller factories across the country followed. Six hundred [[Smithfield, London|Smithfield]] meat porters struck and marched to Westminster and handed Powell a 92-page petition supporting him. Powell advised against strike action and asked them to write to [[Harold Wilson]], Heath or their MP. However, strikes continued, reaching [[Port of Tilbury|Tilbury]] by 25 April and he allegedly received his 30,000th letter supporting him, with 30 protesting against his speech. By 27 April, 4,500 dockers were on strike. On 28 April, 1,500 people marched to [[Downing Street]] chanting "Arrest Enoch Powell".<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|pp=462–465}}</ref> Powell claimed to have received 43,000 letters and 700 telegrams supporting him by early May, with 800 letters and four telegrams against.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=466}}</ref> On 2 May, the [[attorney general]], [[Elwyn Jones, Baron Elwyn-Jones|Sir Elwyn Jones]], announced he would not prosecute Powell after consulting the Director of Public Prosecutions.

[[The Gallup Organization]] took an [[Gallup poll|opinion poll]] at the end of April and found that 74 per cent agreed with what Powell had said in his speech;<ref>{{Cite news |last=Taylor |first=Adam |date=November 2015 |title=In 1968, a British politician warned immigration would lead to violence. Now some say he was right. |language=en |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/in-1968-a-british-politician-warned-immigration-would-lead-to-violence-now-some-say-he-was-right/ |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Perspective {{!}} Most Americans don't know who Enoch Powell was. But they should. |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/04/20/most-americans-dont-know-who-enoch-powell-was-but-they-should/ |access-date=2022-06-09 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> 15 per cent disagreed. 69 per cent felt Heath was wrong to sack Powell and 20 per cent believed Heath was right. Before his speech Powell was favoured to replace Heath as Conservative leader by one per cent, with [[Reginald Maudling]] favoured by 20 per cent; after his speech 24 per cent favoured Powell and 18 per cent Maudling. 83 per cent now felt immigration should be restricted (75 per cent before the speech) and 65 per cent favoured anti-discrimination legislation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=467}}</ref> According to George L. Bernstein, the speech made the British people think that Powell "was the first British politician who was actually listening to them".<ref>{{cite book|author=George L Bernstein|title=The Myth Of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945|year=2004|publisher=Pimlico|isbn=1844131025|page=274}}</ref>

Powell defended his speech on 4 May through an interview for the ''[[Birmingham Post]]'': "What I would take 'racialist' to mean is a person who believes in the inherent inferiority of one race of mankind to another, and who acts and speaks in that belief. So the answer to the question of whether I am a racialist is 'no'—unless, perhaps, it is to be a racialist in reverse. I regard many of the peoples in India as being superior in many respects—intellectually, for example, and in other respects—to Europeans. Perhaps that is over-correcting."<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|pp=466–467}}</ref> On 5 May the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]], [[Harold Wilson]], made his first public statement on race and immigration since Powell's speech. He told Labour supporters at a [[May Day]] rally in [[Birmingham Town Hall]]:

<blockquote>I am not prepared to stand aside and see this country engulfed by the racial conflict which calculating orators or ignorant prejudice can create. Nor in the great world confrontation on race and colour, where this country must declare where it stands, am I prepared to be a neutral, whether that confrontation is in Birmingham or Bulawayo. In these issues there can be no neutrals and no escape from decision. For in the world of today, while political isolationism invites danger and economic isolationism invites bankruptcy, moral isolationism invites contempt.<ref>'Race-Problem Towns To Get Funds For Social Needs', ''The Times'' (6 May 1968), p. 1.</ref></blockquote>

In a speech to the Labour Party conference in [[Blackpool]] that October, Wilson said: 

<blockquote>We are the party of human rights—the only party of human rights that will be speaking from this platform this month. (Loud applause.) The struggle against racialism is a worldwide fight. It is the dignity of man for which we are fighting. If what we assert is true for Birmingham, it is true for Bulawayo. If ever there were a condemnation of the values of the party which forms the Opposition it is the fact that the virus of Powellism has taken so firm a hold at every level.<ref>'Standing ovation for Prime Minister', ''The Times'' (2 October 1968), p. 4.</ref></blockquote>

Powell himself criticised the "Rivers of Blood" title attributed to the speech, which he claimed was the misappropriation of his words. Whilst defending the contents, he told a rally in Bristol that he only saw the "prospect of a bloody conflict".<ref>{{Cite news |date=1969-07-05 |title=Powell fears conflict |work=[[The Times]] |location=London |page=1 |via=[[Gale (publisher)|Gale]] |issue=57604}}</ref> In his notes, he termed it "Speech in Birmingham".{{sfn|Powell|1969|p=282}}

During the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]] the majority of the [[Parliamentary Labour Party]] did not wish to "stir up the Powell issue".<ref name="ButlerPinto-Duschinsky1971">{{cite book|author1=David Butler|author2=Michael Pinto-Duschinsky|title=British General Election of 1970|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9JKuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA160|date=1971|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-349-01095-0|pages=159–160}}</ref> However, the Labour MP [[Tony Benn]] said:

{{Quote|The flag of [[racialism]] which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over [[Dachau]] and [[Belsen]]. If we do not speak up now against the filthy and obscene racialist propaganda&nbsp;... the forces of hatred will mark up their first success and mobilise their first offensive.&nbsp;...

Enoch Powell has emerged as the real leader of the Conservative Party. He is a far stronger character than Mr. Heath. He speaks his mind; Heath does not. The final proof of Powell's power is that Heath dare not attack him publicly, even when he says things that disgust decent Conservatives.<ref name="ButlerPinto-Duschinsky1971" />}}

According to most accounts, the popularity of Powell's perspective on immigration may have played a decisive contributory factor in the Conservatives' surprise victory in the 1970 general election, although Powell became one of the most persistent opponents of the subsequent Heath government.<ref name=mac/><ref name="h10"/> In "exhaustive research" on the election, the American pollster [[Douglas Schoen]] and the [[University of Oxford]] academic [[R. W. Johnson]] believed it "beyond dispute" that Powell had attracted 2.5 million votes to the Conservatives, but nationally the Conservative vote had increased by only 1.7 million since 1966.<ref name="h10"/> In his own constituency at that election—his last in Wolverhampton—his majority of 26,220 and a 64.3 per cent share of the vote were then the highest of his career.

===Powell's reflection on the speech===
Powell reflected on the speech in an interview in 1977 when the interviewer asked him, "nine years after the speech, are we still in your view on a kind of funeral pyre?":

{{Quote|Yes, I've been guilty I suppose of, I've said this before, of under-estimating rather than over-estimating. And I was just looking back at the figures that I was then talking about in 1968 for the end of the century. Do you know my estimates which were regarded with such ridicule and denounced, behold the academics forgive me, they are less than the official estimate which the Franks reported at the beginning of this year are thought. So upon the whole I have leaned, perhaps it's a fault, towards the under-estimation of the magnitude and of the danger.}}

The interviewer then asked him, "what do you see as the likely prospect now? Still the 'River Tiber foaming with blood'?":

{{Quote|My prospect is that, politicians of all parties will say "Well Enoch Powell is right, we don't say that in public but we know it in private, Enoch Powell is right and it will no doubt develop as he says. But it's better for us to do nothing now, and let it happen perhaps after our time, than to seize the many poisonous nettles which we would have to seize if we were at this stage going to attempt to avert the outcome." So let it go on until a third of Central London, a third of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, are coloured, until the Civil War comes, let it go on. We won't be blamed, we'll either have gone or we'll slip out from under somehow.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/3xGLmFNZ1tM Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131125213253/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGLmFNZ1tM Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGLmFNZ1tM|title=Enoch Interview 1977|publisher=Youtube|year=1977}}{{cbignore}}</ref>}}

===Cultural===
Polls in the 1960s and 1970s showed that Powell's views were popular among the British population at the time.<ref name="Collins">{{cite journal |last=Collins |first=Marcus |title=Immigration and opinion polls in postwar Britain |journal=Modern History Review |date=2016 |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=8–13 |publisher=[[Loughborough University]] |hdl=2134/21458 |isbn=9781471887130}}</ref> A [[Gallup, Inc.|Gallup]] poll, for example, showed that 75% of the population were sympathetic to Powell's views.<ref name="Kabir">Nahid Afrose Kabir (2012), [https://books.google.com/books?id=GRPsAQAAQBAJ ''Young British Muslims''], [[Edinburgh University Press]]</ref> An NOP poll showed that approximately 75% of the British population agreed with Powell's demand for [[non-white]] immigration to be halted completely, and about 60% agreed with his call for the [[repatriation]] of non-whites already resident in Britain.<ref name="Collins"/>

The Rivers of Blood speech has been blamed for leading to violent attacks against [[British Pakistanis]] and other [[British Asians|British South Asians]], which became frequent after the speech in 1968;<ref name="Ashe">{{cite journal |last1=Ashe |first1=Stephen |last2=Virdee |first2=Satnam |last3=Brown |first3=Laurence |title=Striking back against racist violence in the East End of London, 1968–1970 |journal=[[Race & Class]] |date=2016 |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=34–54 |doi=10.1177/0306396816642997 |pmid=28479657 |pmc=5327924 |issn=0306-3968}}</ref> however, there is "little agreement on the extent to which Powell was responsible for racial attacks".{{sfn|Hillman|2008|p=89}} These "Paki-bashing" attacks later peaked during the 1970s and 1980s.<ref name="Ashe" />

Powell was mentioned in early versions of the 1969 song "[[Get Back]]" by [[The Beatles]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of The Beatles Let It Be Disaster |first1=Doug |last1=Sulpy |first2=Ray |last2=Schweighardt |page=153 |chapter=Thursday, 9 January 1969}}</ref><ref>Alex Sayf Cummings. [http://www.salon.com/2013/04/14/no_pakistanis_the_racial_satire_the_beatles_dont_want_you_to_hear/ {{"'}}No Pakistanis': The racial satire the Beatles don't want you to hear"]. ''Salon''.</ref> This early version of the song, known as the "No Pakistanis" version, parodied the [[anti-immigrant]] views of Enoch Powell.<ref>{{cite book| last1=Sulpy| first1=Doug| year=2003| last2=Schweighardt| first2=Ray| title=Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles' Let It Be Disaster| publisher=Helter Skelter Publishing| isbn=978-1-900924-83-2| page=153}}</ref>

On 5 August 1976 the musician [[Eric Clapton]] provoked an uproar and lingering controversy when he spoke out against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham. Visibly intoxicated, Clapton voiced his support of the controversial speech, and announced on stage that Britain was in danger of becoming a "black colony". Among other things, Clapton said "Keep Britain white!"<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/oct/14/popandrock2|title=The ten right-wing rockers|last=Bainbridge|first=Luke|date=14 October 2007|work=The Guardian|access-date=20 April 2018|location=London}}</ref> which was at the time a [[National Front (UK)|National Front]] slogan.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hall |first=John |date=19 August 2009 |title=The ten worst rock'n'roll career moves |work=[[The Independent]] |location= |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-ten-worst-rocknroll-career-moves-1774270.html?action=Popup&ino=3 |access-date=}}</ref><ref>''Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music'' by J. Street. 1st ed., (1986). Oxford Press/Basil Blackwell. pp. 74–75.</ref>

In November 2010 the actor and comedian [[Sanjeev Bhaskar]] recalled the fear which the speech instilled in Britons of Indian origin: "At the end of the 1960s, Enoch Powell was quite a frightening figure to us. He was the one person who represented an enforced ticket out, so we always had suitcases that were ready and packed. My parents held the notion that we may have to leave."<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11757017 | publisher=BBC News | title=Sanjeev Bhaskar's family feared Enoch Powell | date=15 November 2010}}</ref>

While a section of the white population appeared to warm to Powell over the speech, the author [[Mike Phillips (writer)|Mike Phillips]] recalls that it legitimised hostility, and even violence, towards black Britons like himself.<ref>{{Cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips | work=The Guardian | title=Enoch Powell – An enigma of awkward passions | first1=Norman | last1=Shrapnel|first2=Mike|last2=Phillips | date=7 February 2001}}</ref>

In his book ''The British Dream'' (2013), [[David Goodhart]] claims that Powell's speech in effect "put back by more than a generation a robust debate about the successes and failures of immigration".<ref name=Goodhart144>{{Harvnb|Goodhart|2013|p=144}}</ref>

{{Quote|Just when a discussion should have been starting about integration, racial justice, and distinguishing the reasonable from the racist complaints of the white people whose communities were being transformed, he polarised the argument and closed it down.<ref name=Goodhart144/>}}

== Identity of the woman mentioned in the speech ==
There were attempts to locate the [[Wolverhampton]] constituent whom Powell described as being victimised by non-white residents. The editor of the local Wolverhampton newspaper the ''[[Express & Star]]'', Clem Jones, claimed he was unable to identify the woman using the [[electoral roll]] and other sources.<ref>{{Harvnb|Goodhart|2013|p=143}}</ref>

Shortly after Powell's death Kenneth Nock, a Wolverhampton solicitor, wrote to the ''Express and Star'' in April 1998 to claim that his firm had acted for the woman in question, but that he could not name her owing to rules concerning [[client confidentiality]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Heffer|1998|p=460}}</ref> In January 2007 the [[BBC Radio 4]] programme ''Document'' claimed to have uncovered the woman's identity. They said she was Druscilla Cotterill (1907–1978), the widow of Harry Cotterill, a [[battery quartermaster sergeant]] with the [[Royal Artillery]] who had been killed in the Second World War. She lived in Brighton Place in Wolverhampton, which by the 1960s had a larger proportion of immigrant families. In order to increase her income, she rented rooms to lodgers, but ceased to take in any more when the [[Race Relations Act 1968]] prevented her from discriminating against certain lodgers on the basis of their race and nationality.

== Support for the speech ==
In the United Kingdom, particularly in England, "Enoch [Powell] was right" is a phrase of political rhetoric, inviting comparison of aspects of current English society with the predictions made by Powell in the "Rivers of Blood" speech.<ref name="Kassam 2018">{{cite book |last=Kassam |first=Raheem |date=2018 |title=Enoch Was Right: 'Rivers of Blood' 50 Years On|publisher=Self-published |isbn=978-1980818823}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=February 2022}} The phrase implies criticism of [[racial quota]]s, immigration and [[multiculturalism]]. Badges, T-shirts and other items bearing the slogan have been produced at different times in the United Kingdom.<ref name="PowellVice" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Northern Ireland Enoch Powell MP 'Enoch Was Right' T-Shirt |url=https://www.amazon.com/Enoch-Powell-Was-Right-T-Shirt/dp/B01M8IH6W2 |website=Amazon.com |access-date=30 August 2018}}</ref> Powell gained support from both right-wing and traditionally left-leaning, working-class voters for his anti-immigration stance.

Powell gained the support of the [[Far-right politics in the United Kingdom|far-right in Britain]]. Badges, T-shirts and fridge magnets emblazoned with the slogan "Enoch was right" are regularly seen at far-right demonstrations, according to [[Vice News]].<ref name="PowellVice" /> Powell also has a presence on social media, with an Enoch Powell page on [[Facebook]] run by the far-right [[Traditional Britain Group]] which amassed several thousands of likes, and similar pages which post "racist [[Internet meme|memes]] and ''[[Daily Mail]]'' stories"<ref name="PowellVice">{{cite news|last1=Poulter|first1=James|title=We Tried to Ask Far-Right Groups About the Enoch Powell Paedophilia Allegations|location=United Kingdom|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/enoch-powell-child-sex-abuse-allegations-the-far-right-833/|access-date=23 April 2016|work=VICE News|date=2 April 2015|language=en-uk}}</ref> have been equally successful,<ref name="PowellVice"/> such as [[British nationalist]] and anti-immigration [[Britain First]]'s Facebook page.<ref>{{cite news|last1=McIntyre|first1=Niam|title=Britain First: Feminism and Fascism|url=http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/britain_first_feminism_and_fascism|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141027021829/http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/britain_first_feminism_and_fascism|url-status=usurped|archive-date=27 October 2014|access-date=23 April 2016|work=New Left Project|date=3 October 2014}}</ref>

In ''The Trial of Enoch Powell'', a [[Channel 4]] television broadcast in April 1998, on the thirtieth anniversary of his Rivers of Blood speech (and two months after his death), 64 per cent of the studio audience voted that Powell was not a racist. Some in the [[Church of England]], of which Powell had been a member, took a different view. Upon Powell's death, Barbados-born [[Wilfred Wood (bishop)|Wilfred Wood]], then [[Bishop of Croydon]], stated, "Enoch Powell gave a certificate of respectability to white racist views which otherwise decent people were ashamed to acknowledge".<ref>"Bishops criticise Abbey over Powell honour", ''The Irish Times'', 16 February 1998, p. 14</ref>

In March 2016 the German historian [[Michael Stürmer]] wrote a retrospective pro-Powell piece in ''[[Die Welt]]'', opining that nobody else had been "punished so mercilessly" by fellow party members and media for their viewpoints.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Stürmer|first1=Michael|title=Enoch Powells frühe Warnung vor der Massenmigration|trans-title=Enoch Powell's early warning about mass migration|url=https://www.welt.de/debatte/kolumnen/Weltlage/article153780196/Enoch-Powells-fruehe-Warnung-vor-der-Massenmigration.html|access-date=31 March 2016|work=Die Welt|date=29 March 2016|language=de}}</ref>

[[Trevor Phillips]] wrote in May 2016 on ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' "Rome may not yet be in flames, but I think I can smell the smouldering whilst we hum to the music of liberal self-delusion" by ignoring the effects of mass immigration. He explicitly compared his warning to Powell's: "He too summoned up echoes of Rome with his reference to Virgil's dire premonition of the River Tiber 'foaming with much blood'". From the damage the reaction to the speech did to Powell's career, Phillips wrote, "Everyone in British public life learnt the lesson: adopt any strategy possible to avoid saying anything about race, ethnicity (and latterly religion and belief) that is not anodyne and platitudinous".<ref name="bingham20160510">{{Cite news |last=Bingham |first=John |date=2016-05-10 |title=Britain 'sleepwalking to catastrophe' over race: Trevor Phillips |language=en-GB |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/10/britain-sleepwalking-to-catastrophe-over-race-trevor-phillips/ |access-date= |issn=}}</ref>

In October 2018 support for the speech was expressed by the [[Plymouth University]] Conservatives, who referenced the phrase "Enoch was Right" on one of the apparel worn for a society gathering.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-45735591|title=Tory uni group suspended over T-shirts|date=3 October 2018|work=BBC News|access-date=15 October 2018|language=en-GB}}</ref>

In November 2022 the conservative political commentator [[Calvin Robinson]], who is also a deacon for the [[Free Church of England]], praised Powell's speech in an article for his blog.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robinson |first=Fr Calvin |date=30 November 2022 |title=Why Enoch was Right |url=https://calvinrobinson.substack.com/p/why-enoch-was-right |access-date= |website=Calvin Robinson Blog |language=en}}</ref>

== Acknowledgement from politicians ==
In an interview for ''[[Today (UK newspaper)|Today]]'' shortly after her departure from office as prime minister in 1990, [[Margaret Thatcher]] said that Powell had "made a valid argument, if in sometimes regrettable terms".<ref name=sandford>[[Christopher Sandford (biographer)|Christopher Sandford]]: "To See and to Speak" in ''[[Chronicles (magazine)|Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture]],'' June 2012</ref>

Thirty years after the speech, Heath said that Powell's remarks on the "economic burden of immigration" had been "not without prescience".<ref name=sandford/>

The Labour Party MP [[Michael Foot]] remarked to a reporter that it was "tragic" that this "outstanding personality" had been widely misunderstood as predicting actual bloodshed in Britain, when in fact he had used the ''Aeneid'' quotation merely to communicate his own sense of foreboding.<ref name=sandford/>

In November 2007 [[Nigel Hastilow]] resigned as the Conservative candidate for [[Halesowen and Rowley Regis]] after he wrote an article in the Wolverhampton ''Express & Star'' that included the statement: "Enoch, once MP for Wolverhampton South-West, was sacked from the Conservative front bench and marginalised politically for his 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech, warning that uncontrolled immigration would change Britain irrevocably. He was right and immigration has changed the face of Britain dramatically."<ref>
{{Cite news|work=The Daily Telegraph |first=Toby |last=Helm |date=5 November 2007 |access-date=5 November 2007 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/05/nmigrants305.xml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109065720/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/05/nmigrants305.xml |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 November 2007 |title=Race row Tory refused to sign gagging order}}
</ref><ref>{{Cite news |first=Nigel |last=Hastilow |work=Wolverhampton Express and Star |title=Britain seen as a soft touch |url=https://www.expressandstar.com/2007/11/05/britain-seen-as-a-soft-touch/ |date=2 November 2007 |access-date=5 November 2007 |archive-date=9 November 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109055832/http://www.expressandstar.com/2007/11/05/britain-seen-as-a-soft-touch/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In January 2014 the [[UK Independence Party]] leader [[Nigel Farage]], after being told during an interview that a statement just read to him had come from Powell's speech, said: "Well what he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension – the basic principle is right."<ref name="Telegraph Farage Rivers of Blood">{{cite web|last=Graham|first=Georgia|title=Nigel Farage: 'the basic principle' of Enoch Powell's River of Blood speech is right|date=5 January 2014 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10552055/Nigel-Farage-the-basic-principle-of-Enoch-Powells-River-of-Blood-speech-is-right.html|publisher=Daily Telegraph|access-date=7 January 2014}}</ref> In June of that year, in response to the alleged [[Islamist]] [[Operation Trojan Horse]], the Conservative peer and former minister [[Norman Tebbit]] wrote in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', "No one should have been surprised at what was going on in schools in Birmingham. It is precisely what I was talking about over 20 years ago and Enoch Powell was warning against long before that. We have imported far too many immigrants who have come here not to live in our society, but to replicate here the society of their homelands."<ref>{{cite news|author1=Tebbit, Norman|author-link1=Norman Tebbit|title=Trojan Horse: I warned about this years ago|url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100275737/trojan-horse-i-warned-about-this-years-ago/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140614001133/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100275737/trojan-horse-i-warned-about-this-years-ago/|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 June 2014|access-date=19 January 2015|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=10 June 2014}}</ref> The Conservative MP [[Gerald Howarth]] said on the same issue, "Clearly, the arrival of so many people of non-Christian faith has presented a challenge, as so many of us, including the late Enoch Powell, warned decades ago."<ref>{{cite news|last1=McSmith|first1=Andy|title=Tory MP Gerald Howarth says Enoch Powell 'was right' in notorious Rivers of Blood speech|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-gerald-howarth-says-enoch-powell-was-right-in-notorious-rivers-of-blood-speech-9693849.html|access-date=28 August 2014|work=[[The Independent]]|date=27 August 2014}}</ref>

In April 2018 the leader of UKIP in Wales, [[Neil Hamilton (politician)|Neil Hamilton]], said that "the idea that Enoch Powell was some kind of uniquely racist villain is absolute nonsense". Hamilton said that Powell had been "proved right by events" in terms of social change if not violence. In response, the leader of [[Plaid Cymru]], [[Leanne Wood]], accused Hamilton of "keeping Powell's racist rhetoric going". The Labour AM [[Hefin David]] described Hamilton's comments as "outrageous".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43783172|title=UKIP Wales leader defends Enoch Powell|date=16 April 2018|work=BBC News|access-date=17 April 2018}}</ref>

In May 2025, following [[Reform UK]]'s electoral success at the [[2025 United Kingdom local elections|2025 local elections]], the prime minister, [[Keir Starmer]], gave a press conference in which he promised a significant fall in net migration by the end of the Parliament, stating: "This plan means migration will fall – that's a promise."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Starmer unveils 'tighter' immigration policy promising numbers will fall 'significantly' - live updates |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce810e3z6dkt |access-date=2025-05-12 |website=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref> His line "we risk becoming an island of strangers" when discussing stricter immigration controls was criticised by media outlets and the Labour backbencher [[Zarah Sultana]] as echoing Powell's "strangers in their own country" line from the speech.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Crace |first=John |date=2025-05-12 |title=The race to the bottom is on as Starmer delivers his great immigration reset |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/12/starmer-delivers-some-home-truths-in-labours-great-immigration-reset |access-date=2025-05-12 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

==Dramatic portrayals==
The speech is the subject of a play, ''[[What Shadows]]'', written by Chris Hannan. The play was staged in Birmingham from 27 October to 12 November 2016, with Powell portrayed by [[Ian McDiarmid]] and Jones by [[George Costigan]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Acting out: That famous speech set for the stage|work=Shropshire Star|date=8 October 2016|page=2 (Weekend supplement)}}</ref>

''The Speech'', a novel by the author Andrew Smith set in Wolverhampton during the ten days before and after the speech and featuring Powell as a character, was published in October 2016 by Urbane Publications.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.expressandstar.com/entertainment/2016/11/12/the-speech-by-andrew-smith-review/ |title=The Speech, by Andrew Smith – review |date=12 November 2016 |newspaper=[[Express & Star]]}}</ref>

In April 2018 the [[BBC]] announced that [[Archive on 4]] would transmit ''50 Years On: Rivers of Blood'', a programme marking the 50th anniversary of the speech.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z08w3|title=50 Years On: Rivers of Blood, Archive on 4 – BBC Radio 4|website=BBC|language=en-GB|access-date=20 April 2018}}</ref> Ian McDiarmid would read the entire speech, the first time it would be broadcast on British radio, and it would be discussed and analysed. Several commentators criticised the BBC for this.<ref>{{cite news|first=Mark |last=Sweney |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/12/bbc-to-air-reading-of-enoch-powells-rivers-of-blood-speech |title=BBC under fire over Enoch Powell 'rivers of blood' broadcast |newspaper=The Guardian |date=12 April 2018 |access-date=13 April 2018}}</ref>

On New Year's Day 2023, Season 12 Episode 1 of ''[[Call the Midwife]]'' ('April 1968') aired, dealing with the aftermath and impact of the speech, including the 1968 dockworkers' strike.<ref>{{cite news|first=Simon |last=Duke |url= https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/tv/call-the-midwife-racism-nurse-25875602.amp|newspaper=Chronicle Live |title=Call The Midwife racism storyline leaves viewers 'heartbroken' as upset Nurse Robinson walks out|date=1 January 2023|access-date=2 January 2023}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Politics|United Kingdom|1960s}}
* [[Criticism of multiculturalism]]
* [[Demographics of the United Kingdom]]
* [[Great Replacement]]
* [[Le bruit et l'odeur]]
* [[Protests of 1968]]
* [[Racism in the British Conservative Party]]
* [[Pauline Hanson|Swamped by Asians speech]] by Australian [[Pauline Hanson]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|colwidth=25em}}

== Further reading ==
* Bourne, Jenny. "The beatification of Enoch Powell". ''Race & Class'' 49.4 (2008): 82–87. Argues "we are witnessing the beginnings of his rehabilitation as an authoritative political figure."
* Crines, Andrew, Tim Heppell, and Michael Hill. "Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech: A rhetorical political analysis". ''British Politics'' 11#1 (2016): 72–94. [http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/99732/3/BP%20-%20Powell%20Rivers%20of%20Blood%20(Second%20Version).pdf online]
* Deakin, N. and Bourne, J. "Powell, and the minorities and the 1970 election". ''Political Quarterly'' (1970) 44#4: 399–415.
* {{Cite book|first=David |last=Goodhart|title=The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-War Immigration| publisher = Atlantic Books| location = London | year = 2013 | isbn = 9781843548058 }}
* {{Cite book|first=Simon |last=Heffer |title=Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell|title-link=Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell | publisher = Orion | location = London | year = 1998 | isbn = 0-7538-0820-X }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Hillman |first1=Nicholas |author-link=Nick Hillman|title=A 'chorus of execration'? Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' forty years on |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |date=February 2008 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=83–104 |doi=10.1080/00313220701805927 |s2cid=143681971 }}
* {{Cite book| last = McLean | first = Iain | title = Rational Choice and British Politics | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford Oxfordshire | year = 2001 | isbn = 0-19-829529-4 }}
* Norton, P. "The Oratory of Enoch Powell" in Hayton R. and Crines, A. (eds.) ''Conservative Orators from Baldwin to Cameron'' (Manchester University Press, 2015).
* {{Cite book | last = Roth | first = Andrew | title = Enoch Powell: Tory Tribune | publisher = Macdonald & Co | location = London | year = 1970 | isbn = 0-356-03150-0 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/enochpowelltoryt0000roth }}
* Whipple, Amy. "Revisiting the 'Rivers of Blood' Controversy: Letters to Enoch Powell". ''Journal of British Studies'' 48#3 (2009): 717–735.

===Primary sources===
* {{Cite book| last = Powell | first = Enoch | title = Freedom and Reality | publisher = Elliot Right Way Books | location = Kingswood | year = 1969 | isbn = 0-7160-0541-7 }}

== External links ==
* [https://anth1001.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/enoch-powell_speech.pdf Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech], Full text of the speech
** [https://www.enochpowell.net/fr-79.html Alternative link]
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007737v Document – The Woman Who Never Was?] BBC Radio 4, 22 January 2007
* [http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/38480000/rm/_38480813_enoch.ram Radio Interview on Immigration] Powell interviewed shortly after his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech, BBC News (Audio clip, 3:31 mins, requires RealPlayer to listen)
* [http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/powell_press.htm Speech that has raised a storm] Press reaction from the ''Birmingham Post'', 22 April 1968
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/1968/riversofblood.shtml "Rivers of Blood, The Real Source"], BBC Radio 4, 3 March 2008
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z08w3 50 Years On: Rivers of Blood], BBC Radio 4, Archive on 4, 14 April 2018

{{Enoch Powell}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivers Of Blood Speech}}
[[Category:1968 in British politics]]
[[Category:1968 in England]]
[[Category:1968 speeches]]
[[Category:1960s in Birmingham, West Midlands]]
[[Category:Anti-immigration politics in England]]
[[Category:April 1968 in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Criticism of multiculturalism]]
[[Category:Enoch Powell]]
[[Category:History of Birmingham, West Midlands]]
[[Category:History of immigration to the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:History of the Conservative Party (UK)]]
[[Category:Works about immigration]]
[[Category:White nationalism in the United Kingdom]]