The book is made out of four chapters so I will break down each chapter.
Chapter 1 is called ‘Grand Imperialist to little Englander’ and is essentially a list to letters by Enoch Powell and MPs, and news articles, and Paul Foot uses these to suggest Enoch Powell was dishonest and a hypocrite. The author’s entire book is based on him forcing psychological contradictions into Powell’s head, like a typical and stereotypical eternal Socialist.
For example, he explains how Powell was against a law which would make anybody in the Commonwealth a certain type of citizen, rather than all Commonwealth citizens have the same British rights to access the homeland. Paul Foot explains how this proves that Enoch wanted to maintain a multicultural empire, and thus was happy to have everyone welcome to the UK, while also maintaining that Enoch says he was against the change in law because it would bring about dissolving of the British Empire (which it did). Somehow from this Paul Foot concludes that Enoch didn’t care about immigration, but only about the fastest way to power, while Enoch wanted the British Empire to still exist, which would maintain the Motherland and Empire, and this gives no reason for every Commonwealth member to mass immigrate to the UK, as it did in the 1950s and 1960s. This apparent contradiction merely shows the writer’s ideology, and hard pulling of his own narrative of what actually happened and why together.
Enoch feared post-world war II that if India was not protected and kept under and by the British Empire, then the Socialists (by this Enoch means the Russians) would take it, or it would fall apart and invite itself to the Motherland of Britain, which it did.
Paul Foot then points out how Enoch is a hypocrite because he supported imperialism, the monarchy and the British Empire, yet he wrote three articles for ‘The Times’ in 1964 which said imperialism, the Empire and Monarch are a farce. Foot says all this while saying that the articles were written anonymously, but must be Enoch’s because of how he views and style are the same. But how is Enoch hypocritical if the views are the same in the articles to his real views which prove the letters were written by him. Either they aren’t written by him and cause no hypocrisy, or he did write them and thus contradicted himself, but if your argument is that the views in the articles and his real-life views were identical, thus it proves they were his articles, then he isn’t a hypocrite because he as the same views as the anonymous writer. How is it clearly his set of articles if the style is the same when he style was typical of a British Imperialist, which wasn’t exactly uncommon at the time. It could just as easily have been someone replicating his style. Either way Paul Foot’s argument is messy at best, assumptive and down-right nonsensical at worst. His argument is that Enoch Powell is a hypocrite because he contradicts his own opinions from fifteen years ago, in three articles that he may or may not have written. Quite the argument.
Chapter 2 is titled ‘Immigration into Wolverhampton’ and is a very short discussion of Enoch Powell’s eventual statements about immigration, and the problem of immigration in the Black Country in general.
In this chapter he does get one thing right about Powell. Powell was not concerned with racial discrimination because it is and was merely a symptom of the root problem – immigration. Why concentrate on racial discrimination while ignoring the real issue and cause – a lack of immigration control. The simplest solution is as Paul Foot rightly states Enoch as saying ‘The racial problem, therefore, boiled itself down to a single, simple demand: Keep Them Out.’ (page 55)
Paul Foot has an annoying habit of saying MPs who disagree with immigration are wrong, without explaining why. While giving undue attention to people who speak out of emotion. For example, a lecture on the dangers of immigration was set up on the 18th July 1961 in Wolverhampton – which was Enoch Powell’s constituency and thus he was the MP of Wolverhampton. Geoffrey Ayre, a pacifist and charity worker of an emotionally religious character (Foot is sure to let you know about this several times) attended, saying ‘It was the worst I had ever attended. It was one long catalogue of the crimes, disease and fecklessness of coloured people. None of it has anything to do with the facts.’ (page 55) But, Geoffrey, my dear soyboy of the 60s – crime, disease and immigration are factual statistics, just because you do not like these statistics does not mean they have nothing to do with the facts.
Paul Foot later shows his Socialist leanings which Orwell described as ‘Not loving the poor, but hating the rich’, when he goes on a rant about Enoch’s statement that his home is in an area which has suffered under immigration and gone black.
Foot’s argument is in two parts:
1. Firstly, that Enoch has two houses, one in Wolverhampton and one in London. Thus, while his own home is swamped and swarmed with immigration problems, he can always escape to another which isn’t. How this makes his claim untrue is unclear as it is true, and the fact that he is presenting the problems of Wolverhampton as the MP of Wolverhampton who owns a house in Wolverhampton which has been ruined by immigration, somehow means he is a liar about immigration in general and the affects it has had on Wolverhampton, and his own home and street.
2. Secondly, he is wrong that his street and area has gone ‘black’ because the immigration is mostly Indian, not African. These are the arguments and language nit-pickings of a facile Marxist. His argument can be summed up as ‘he is wrong because I don’t like the way he said that which is true.’
Chapter 3 is titled ‘On the bandwagon’, and is this chapter Foot continues his habit of comparing two dates and arguments to show that Enoch Powell is a hypocrite and opportunist.
On page 69 Foot explains how areas of the black country were becoming more and more obsessed with talking about immigration, and the problems it brings, while Enoch Powell remained relatively quiet about immigration. Foot then points out that as the black country area become even more interested in immigration and were dying to have political representation of being against immigration, which resulted in Enoch finally speaking out about immigration. To Paul Foot, this means Enoch just wanted power and was using the issue of immigration. Yet, if Foot had listened closer to Enoch’s Rivers of Blood speech, written and performed only a year before Foot wrote this trash, he would have heard Enoch talking about how he has taken up the issue because he has no choice but to, because he is an MP and his job is to represent his people.
Then Foot makes a typical Marxist mistake. He thinks that the right wing thinks and disagree with what they disagree with only because it doesn’t make sense, and thus if only he explains how it does make sense the right will suddenly agree with him. He explains how in 1964 it was found out that 24% of the births in Wolverhampton had been to coloured mothers. He explains this by saying ‘a not very surprising percentage considering that about a fifth of the people of child-bearing age in Wolverhampton were coloured.’ (page 78) He thinks that by explaining that one fifth of the people of children bearing age in Wolverhampton are coloured, that 24% of the birth-rate being coloured, will merely make the right suddenly realise that this makes sense. Rather than secure and validate the fear that a minority is slowly taking over. He repeats this yet again on page 82 when he explains that only 10% of the population of Wolverhampton are immigrants, thus shouldn’t be worried about, but 10% producing 24% of the birth-rate is something to worry about and yet again proves the anti-immigration lobby at the time correct.
He then tries to use this to show Enoch Powell is a hypocrite by showing how before Enoch found out these statistics he was for immigration, and the immigrants inviting their wives and children, and that when he found out these statistics he changed his mind. He then was against the immigrants coming in, and inviting their wives and children because it would merely make this problem worse. This doesn’t show Enoch Powell being a hypocrite, but changing his mind based on facts. Which is nothing but a compliment.
Foot quotes Enoch as saying ‘At the present rate…there would be two and a half million immigrants in this country by the year 2000.’ (page 94) This obliterates Foot’s argument that Enoch was overplaying immigration, considering that the UK suffers half a million immigrants a year, this is ignoring students, and that the census of 2011 shows that the UK has a non-white population of roughly 8 million, which obviously ignores the large white immigrant population, pushing that immigrant population number even higher.
This chapter is full of Foot making these pathetic arguments. For example, he quotes Enoch as saying ‘200,000 Indians in Kenya alone have an absolute right of entry (through immigration laws) to this country.’ (page 110) And how does Foot ruin this argument? By pointing out that the Asian population in Kenya was only 192,000, a whole 8000 off, and of these 192,000, a massive 70,000 decided to become Kenyan, rather than immigrate to the UK. But how does that change the fact that almost 200,000 Asian Kenyans could have come to the UK as a matter of right? It doesn’t, which was Enoch’s argument.
He does this yet again on page 116 where he explains how bad reports about the immigrant population when proved are often hidden because the officials do not wish to show the immigrant in a bad light. While Enoch repeated a story about a white woman in Wolverhampton being abused without checking if it was true, thus Paul Foot concludes that Enoch was trying to brand the whole of the immigrant population as bad.
On the same page he makes the retarded conclusion that such stories cannot be trusted because they are repeated by ‘racialists’ and ‘extremists’. But how can one know that the story if being repeated by a ‘racialist’ and ‘extremist’? Easy, for Paul Foot, anyone who repeats these stories is a ‘racialist’ and ‘extremist’ exactly because they repeat these stories.
Chapter 4 is the last chapter and titled ‘Weasel words’. It is an attempt to conclude that Enoch is an evil capitalist who is mean spirited, while the immigrant is innocent and beautiful.
On page 131, Foot makes the case that immigration has not caused the housing shortage because the UK was already suffering a housing shortage. This ignores the most obvious objection – did the increase in immigration makes the housing shortage worse? The only answer is yes.
He then moves on from this on page 132, where he shows how each immigrant per head costs less than the native British per head. Why would the fact that Capitalism invites in cheap labour in order to make money and push the native working class to the side line into unemployment and homelessness be a good argument against Enoch – who believed the native people are the most important asset to its own nation, and should not be abused. Paul Foot is putting forward the abuse of the native working class, the cheap immigrant labourer, and also making more money for that which abuses both of these groups. An odd argument from a Socialist like Foot. It’s almost as if he is an international Socialist and doesn’t actually care about the working class unless they are brown and foreigners – Paul Foot in the 60s was already putting forward the Cultural Marxism which now dominates the current world.
He also shows on page 132 that the immigrant gets cheaper to have in your nation the more you invite in. Yes, because every new immigrant harms the next one in by becoming a cheaper and cheaper labour tool. He then points out that with every new immigrant, the native population becomes more expensive and uses more services. Well yes, as people come in, offer cheaper and cheaper labour, take up housing, have children, of course the native population will become more unemployed, homeless and need more social programs which cost more as the native population’s unemployment and homelessness problem increases.
The last section of the chapter and book brings into question why Enoch was against immigration. Enoch is quoted as saying ‘The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England become an Englishman. In law, he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a West Indian or Asian still.’ (page 137) From this he concludes that Enoch means race, which he clearly does, and thus as Foot says Enoch is just like the anti-Semitic. He says that race is an illusion and thus Enoch is deluded by race, and thus is a racialist, and just like the National Socialists – Nationalsozialistische – Nazi! Anyone in the current world understands what Foot is doing – he is screaming ‘literally Hitler!’ And ‘Nazi!’ He then compares Enoch to Joe McCarthy, which is hilarious considering that we now know that McCarthy was correct about Communism in the US, and thus McCarthyism is morally and factually sound.
This chapter is titled ‘Weasel Words’, it would be more accurate to title the book this and direct it towards the author and how he forms arguments. ‘Weasel Words’ indeed.
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