ANOTHER VOICE

Now I understand why Enoch so much wanted to explain himself to me

MATTHEW PARRIS

Enoch Powell spoke immediately before me in the Debate on the Northern Ireland (Homosexual Offences) Order just after 11 p.m. on 25 October 1982.

In whips' terms the thing was a non- event. They knew the measure would com- mand an easy majority of those who had bothered to stay. But for me it was impor- tant: a significant evening in my life. I had written out a short speech supporting the Order, and committed it to memory. Heart pounding, I was waiting to speak — when the Deputy Speaker called Enoch Powell.

The effect of the measure was to extend to Northern Ireland the law governing homo- sexuality in England, Scotland and Wales, where the age of consent was at the time 21. In Northern Ireland homosexual behaviour was absolutely prohibited, even in private between consenting adults of any age.

The Conservative government of the day had been elbowed by the European Court into relaxing the law, after the Court upheld a complaint by a Mr Dudgeon, a homosexual man from Northern Ireland. I think the Secretary of State (Jim Prior) was pleased to order the change; but grateful to the European Court for initiating it because the reform was vehemently opposed by the Ulster Unionists. The busi- ness was put on at the end of a long day and, though government members knew the measure had the government's blessing, there was no whip: this was a free vote. There was no significant opposition, apart from the Ulster Unionists.

I am sorry if what follows sounds at times arcane or technical. In a way it is, but it sowed in my mind a question about Enoch Powell which Canon Eric James's recent let- ter to the Times has at last helped answer; and, like the Canon, I think it is worth get- ting these things right while memory is still fresh, and before the clay hardens around the man's record and reputation.

When Mr Powell rose I was momentarily cast down. I just wanted to get my speech over with. But at least (I thought) he would be interesting; and he would surely speak in a way helpful, or at least sympathetic, to my own argument. He had after all been one of the minority of Conservative MPs who voted in favour of the Wolfenden reforms for England in 1967.

Soon after rising, Powell reminded MPs of the 1967 vote (when he had been a Con- servative) and added that in 1980 (Powell was by then an Ulster Unionist) he had voted for provisions in a Bill which extend- ed the English reforms to Scotland — a measure adopted on a free vote, he said.

I have since checked this statement and found that Mr Powell's memory may have been at fault. There was indeed a 'free' Commons vote on the clause in question (moved by a backbencher, Robin Cook) but Mr Powell does not seem to have voted for it. He did later support the Bill as a whole (a much wider measure) but this was a government Bill, moved at Third Reading on a whipped vote.

But that I was only to discover later. At the time it was his speech itself which dismayed me. Mr Powell opposed the Northern Ire- land Order. Other Unionists attacked the morality of the measure, but Powell made a long and (I thought) tortuous speech about the constitutional implications of extending law to the Province in this way. He found them unwelcome, and would oppose the Order for that reason, he said.

Why? First he objected to the shortness of the time allocation to the debate. Then he said his objection to the manner in which the government was proceeding was that this vote was whipped, whereas on pre- vious occasions a free vote had been allowed on matters 'of conscience'. It was `an affront', he said.

Kenneth Lewis (then MP for Rutland & Stamford) interrupted to point out that the vote was not whipped for government members.

Mr Powell then seemed to change tack, insisting instead that even if it were upon a free vote, the measure was advanced 'with the authority of the government on a gov- ernment motion' — and this was not the right way to proceed.

The reasoning is odd. The Scotland Bill had also been put forward as a government motion — and indeed whipped. But Mr Powell had voted for it. It was on the free vote on the 'gay' clause for Scotland that he had not voted.

Powell said nothing about this, but did mention that 'it has hitherto been thought right' for different laws on moral questions to govern different parts of the Kingdom. I noticed how careful he was neither to endorse that philosophy, nor advocate it for the future. Here was tricky ground for those Unionists who wanted integration, and Powell did not rest his case upon it.

Instead he began to criticise the Euro- pean Court, which he said was imposing `judge-made' law on the United Kingdom. We were acting 'under compulsion'. This was not quite accurate — we were being leaned upon — but I saw his point. Alone, however, it hardly seemed sufficient reason to vote against a measure. Mr Powell did not suggest he always voted against mea- sures Britain was under pressure from Europe to adopt; one would have thought his attitude to the merits of the measure, not just its provenance, would matter.

But on this he was silent. He spoke for a quarter of an hour (the House only had 90 minutes) and I kept waiting for him to express a view on the purpose of the Order. He never did.

Well let me not mince words. I do not think Enoch Powell was opposed in princi- ple to the reform: but his adopted party was — violently — and I think his courage failed him. So he found other reasons to vote against the Order. They were not (for him) trivial reasons, but they were not his real reason. His was an unhappy speech.

Between then and his death he twice but- tonholed me and repeated, at length, and in the same tortured way, the reasoning behind his speech and vote that night. Mr Powell did not know me well and I was sur- prised at this apparent anxiety to explain his behaviour to a very junior backbencher.

I am glad Canon Eric James has written as he now has to correct a Times obituary, and to disclose what Enoch Powell had asked him not to disclose until after his death: that an early love poem was not to a woman, but to another man. It helps me understand that strange debate, and understand his wretched plight, too, trapped among the Ulster Union- ists. Canon James's letter helps me like Enoch Powell more.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.