❓WHAT HAPPENED: British Business Secretary Peter Kyle compared Reform Party leader Nigel Farage to former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Enoch Powell, who warned in the 1960s of the disastrous consequences of mass migration, describing him as “today’s incarnation” of Powell’s politics.

👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Peter Kyle, Nigel Farage, and other speakers at the Co-operative Party conference, including Communities Secretary Steve Reed.

📍WHEN & WHERE: November 15, at the Co-operative Party conference.

💬KEY QUOTE: “Lack of economic growth is the cause. Nigel Farage, today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell, is the effect” – Peter Kyle

🎯IMPACT: The remarks drew attention to the ongoing influence of Powell, who passed away in 1998, over the immigration debate and British politics legacy.

Britain’s Business Secretary Peter Kyle attempted to smear Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at the Co-operative Party conference on November 15, describing him as “today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell.” Enoch Powell, who passed away in 1998, is well-known for a host of achievements, including being the youngest professor in the British Empire in 1937 at only 25 years old, and a highly decorated war veteran, signing up for the army in October of 1939 as a private and ending the Second World War as a brigadier, the equivalent of a brigadier general, the youngest in the British army. However, he is best remembered for his so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968, where he warned that mass migration was causing social disintegration.

Kyle, a member of the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s leftist Labour Party government, argued that Britain’s stalled economic growth is eroding confidence in democratic institutions and creating space for “the parties of the far right,” whose “dogma of disruption, division and despair” has become “alluring.”

He said the political approach of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party resembles that of the quasi-fascist National Front and the British National Party in previous decades. He added, “Lack of economic growth is the cause. Nigel Farage, today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell, is the effect.”

In his “Rivers of Blood” speech, Powell warned, “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 dependants, 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.” Powell’s intervention received broad public support, but a furious reaction from the political class, with the Conservatives’ then-leader, Edward “Ted” Heath, expelling him from the Shadow Cabinet.

Notably, gross immigration to Britain in 2024 stood at around 950,000 a year.

Kyle’s remarks reflect an ongoing tension between Kyle and Farage. Earlier this year, they clashed during debates over the Online Safety Act, with Kyle accusing Farage of siding with harmful influences by opposing the legislation, which empowers the authorities to further censor the Internet and prosecute online speech. Farage rejected the accusation and condemned the Act as a threat to free expression, even testifying about the legislation to the U.S. Congress earlier this year.

Immigration to Britain reached historic highs under Conservative former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, and remains high under Starmer, putting pressure on public services, limiting integration, and undermining social cohesion. Rising illegal immigration and high levels of crime among migrants, particularly sex crimes, have intensified public concerns.

The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, a former adviser to Nigel Farage, revisited Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in his book Enoch Was Right: “Rivers of Blood” 50 Years On in 2018. Kassam argues that many of Powell’s warnings about migration, demographics, and social cohesion have proved prescient, and asserts that political leaders have avoided serious engagement with Powell’s arguments by dismissing them as racist rather than debating them directly.

Enoch Was Right: “Rivers of Blood” 50 Years On can be purchased here.

Image by Allan Warren.

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