POWELL GIVEN PROTECTION

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 11

POWELL GIVEN PROTECTION

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

LONDON, June 11.

Mr Enoch Powell, whose solo stand to make racialism the major issue in the British General Election has made him the No. 1 target of demonstrators, has been given special security guards for the remainder of the campaign.

Neither the Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) nor the Conservative Party leader (Mr Edward Heath) are afforded such protection. In his own constituency in Wolverhampton last night, Mr Powell was told that every time he made a speech, Indian schoolchildren were attacked by white children. A social worker in the audience said that he had spoken recently to a number of teachers who were concerned about white children beating up coloured children. “Every time you make a speech, Indian children in schools are attacked,” he added. Mr Powell, whose speeches on immigration have caused nation-wide controversy, replied: “And who has made the speeches when the English children are attacked?”

The police had to break up angry scenes after the meeting, when demonstrators, mostly immigrant students and workers, chanted “Powell

out” and gave the Nazi salute to Mr Powell’s supporters. With his wife by his side, Mr Powell had had to fight his way through a crowd of chanting youths to reach the hall. He shouted above their taunts to the audience: “You may think that what you are seeing here is an exhibition of youthful exuberance and bad manners. It is not. You may think it is harmless. It is not. You may think it is aimed at me. It is not—it is aimed at all of you. They are after you. All of you are their target. Their aim' is to see the day-to-day way of life, the decent things of life that the majority want, are demolished and destroyed.” Mr Powell, who rose from private to brigadier in the Second World War, glared at a youth who gave a Hitler salute, and went on: “Some of us personally witnessed what was done on the Continent under that sign, and it is a symbol we shall never forget.”