Powell and the Tories
Sir: Astounding and incredible though it may seem to so many it is the The Spectator that is now prime mover and promulgator of one of the greatest Tory U-turns of them all: I refer, of course, to the very strange case of Mr Enoch Powell.
For let us consider the record. So ruthlessly did Mr Powell oppose our entry into, the EEC and then the leadership which, took us there that he felt so unconstrained as to advise his supporters not merely to abstain from the February election but to vote positively for a Labour ministry that has since hacked so destructively, at th,ose other values Mr Powell presumably still
. holds dear. I am sure Mr Cosgrave does not need reniinding 4 niust obviously Mr Powell', tiO matter how uncomfortable and how shabby it makes him feel — of what is now going on in Parliament; of what is going on in the key ministries as corporate powers are proposed to control, direct and dragoon British industry; as the system of differential reward, thrift and enterprise is being purposely dismantled; as whole businesses are being decapitalised; as press freedom is placed in jeopardy; as our economy lurches deeper into crisis and hyperinflation and our creditors look on incredulous and aghast.
All this, let us not forget, Mr Powell had a hand in bringing about; it is with his active connivance that these things are done and now we are being told that no opposition to this state of affairs can be complete until Mr Powell himself is in the van of it. How grotesque this all is, and how more so it becomes as every day passes without any outward and visible sign from Mr Powell that he regets a fraction of it. For Mrs Thatcher a socialist Chancellor may come too cheap; I hope she will agree that the present price of Mr Powell is far too high. But then there is Mr Powell's avowed opposition to the EEC and the maintenance of the UK within it. For some time it was a campaign he mounted so assiduously and fought so powerfully it earned him much respect. But it is different now; and it is time it was made clear that not all those Conservatives who are against the EEC are pro-Powell, or that he remains their intellectual leader. Indeed, by his failure to grasp the fealties of the party system in this country Mr Powell has proved a quite disastrous strategist, and it is he more than anyone by his actions over the past year who has brought to the EEC opposition that ring of shrill extremism the campaign can most afford to do without.
I do not ask him to recant on his European views. On the contrary. But to continue to pursue them in the manner in which he has chosen to pursue them then he is in danger of running up a huge deficit, through the law of diminishing political returns. And how Mr Powell has been diminished! It has lent support to what many have suspected of him: that in the intensity of his ultimate ends resides a blemish of judgement: a profound underestimation of the mechanism by which political policy is accepted or rejected, evolved and articulated through the dynamic of the two party system, which lends more stature and political weight to those dissidents within it than to those without. Mr Powell is now without. And in forsaking the central stage for his own sideshow the command performances of 1969-73 are now reduced to a bizarre burlesque. It explains why not all Powellists are Powellites, and that this deficit is to be borne, not by him alone but by the anti-EEC movement in general.
It is necessary for this to be known for there will be no peace in the party and no firmity of purpose until its position with Mr Powell is made clear beyond doubt. It is time it was clear. And it is time that Mr Powell for his part, abandoning those grand illusions which have so weakened him in the last year recognises that in humility — a word not known for its frequency on his lips — is the beginning of wisdom.
In the meantime, whether or not Mr Powell is deserving of a Shadow Cabinet position — now or in the future — lies entirely with him. Indeed, it is not for Mrs Thatcher to offer: it is for Mr Powell to earn.
Bill Jamieson 22 Belsize Park Gardens, London NW3
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