BRITAIN’S ELECTION WHERE DOES CONTROVERSIAL MR POWELL GO FROM HERE ?

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32322, 13 June 1970, Page 10

BRITAIN’S ELECTION WHERE DOES CONTROVERSIAL MR POWELL GO FROM HERE ?

'Reprinted from the “Economist” by arrangement)

In South-West Wolverhampton, the constituency which Mr Enoch Powell has held for the Conservative Party for 20 years, Powellism no longer causes a stir. The hatred and fear aroused in the town two years ago by Mr Powell’s early anti-black speeches did not raise their heads visibly when his election manifesto listed Commonwealth immigration as Britain’s number one danger: numbers two and three being entry to the Common Market and Socialism.

But Mr Powell got the national headlines he was certainly seeking, and no doubt will continue to do so whenever in his election stomp around the west Midlands he says anything sufficiently shocking. His speech at Smethwick had the television cameras eagerly watching, although it was not he, but the petulant Mr Wedgwood Benn who gratuitously raised the heat on the race issue by declaring that the flag hoisted over Wolverhampton was “beginning to look like the one that fluttered over Dachau and Belsen.” That is one way of giving Mr Powell a boost. But, having achieved notoriety, Mr Powell can always find publicity at moments of his own choosing. After the latest opinion polls the question he must be asking as much as anyone else is: where does Enoch Powell go from here?

Sure Of Re-election The answer has to begin in his home town. He has the unanimous support of his local party machine and is sure of re-election. His is opposed by four other candidates this time instead of one; so any significant personal vote against him may not show up. Certainly some people resent his exploitation of social issues in Wolverhampton to build up his own image. His opponents believe that he must forfeit the moderate Tory vote. But how many immoderate Labour ones has he won over? How much of a portent can be read into the fate of the Bradmore working men’s club, in the heart of Mr Powell’s constituency, which recently lost a court case brought by the Race Relations Board? Charged with refusing to allow coloured guests on to the premises during a public party, part of the club’s defence was that all working men's clubs in that area of the country banned coloured people.

Coloured Voters

There are at least 6000 coloured Commonwealth immigrants living in SouthWest Wolverhampton and probably more than half are now potential voters. The large Sikh community is being wooed by the Labour candidate' and (through the local Indian Workers’ Association) by the Communist. Some will be decoyed by the Independent, an ex-naval officer who has popped up from nowhere on a “free immigration” ticket. The West Indians are pleased with Mr Callaghan for stopping the South African cricket tour but this may not get them as far as the polls. They (and some moderate Tories) may prefer the Liberal candidate, who is known and liked locally. The Labour organisation is poor and has got to work too late to take advantage of the fluid vote. In other circumstances Mr Powell's 6500 majority might have been in some danger, but not here and now. But is Mr Powell running for South-West Wolverhampton I or the future leadership of ■ the Conservative Party? He

is not without his pretensions to leadership; he put in his visiting card by allowing his name to go forward when Mr Heath was elected (he got 15 votes), and the idea that he might lead the Tory party one day does not strike him as it does not strike many Tories—as being absurd. Whether by intellectual conviction or design, Mr Powell picks the issues that arouse the emotions of the mass Tory party members. He has done it again in his election address, and it is not insignificant that the first two items of his three-point programme—the banning of the wives and children of immigrant workers and resistance to Britain joining the Common Market—are in direct opposition to Mr Heath and the other Tory leaders.

A Scenario Perhaps it is all emotion, and perhaps Mr Powell is not the cold, logical, analytical brain that he is said to be. But if he is he would not find it impossible to write a scenario which brought

him to the leadership of the Conservative Party against the wishes of the majority of Tory parliamentarians. If the Tories lose this election badly, Mr Powell’s power and influence among rank-and-flle Tories will be roughly equal to that Aneurin Bevan had in the Labour Party after 1951. It seemed impossible then that either Bevan or Gaitskell or their friends would ever reach the accommodation that eventually came about.

That might be the limit of Mr Powell’s ambitions: deputy leadership with the prospects of succession. But whatever the ambition, if Mr Heath were overthrown by the combined pressures of a despondent Tory parliamentary party and an angry rank and file, his successor would be faced with demands to reach an accommodation with Mr Powell. Mr Powell has nothing to gain by a Tory victory; he will be excluded from office by Mr Heath. Provided he is not personally disloyal to Mr Heath in this campaign, he has everything to gain from a Tory defeat.