From
White Noise - Remembering Enoch Powell
by Daniel Williams, Planet 131

Race is a dirty word in British politics, and if any proof were needed of the guilty silences and historical amnesias and evasions that accompany discussions of race in the contemporary Yookay then it was offered by the death of Enoch Powell. As Blair's Labour entered its second year in office, the remembering of Enoch Powell revealed the dangers of the current political climate in which conviction is replaced by consensus. In this era of Cool Britannia, New Labour and the People's Princess, race was carefully removed from the picture as the leading racist politician of the post-war era was remembered for his shrewd mind, strong convictions, and admirable patriotism. In Wales, the journal Barn, which has recently been a leading forum for progressive political analysis, saw fit to publish a tribute to Powell written by the late Professor Stephen J. Williams. Professor Williams concludes his happy reminiscences of collaborating with Powell on medieval manuscripts relating to the laws of Hywel Dda by stating that, "It was a privilege to know the gracious scholar, with his serious look, but sincere smile...."

...From defender of the Raj to the defender of the Union, Enoch Powell may be regarded as the quintessential politician of late-imperial Britain. Throughout his life he sought to defend an idea of Britishness that was becoming increasingly outmoded. His racism was fundamental to his politics, and was derived from a British nationalism based on an idea of a traditional, ritualistic, pure English nation that had never existed. For the current Labour Prime Minister to consider Powell an exemplary politician is simply obscene. In Wales, Powell should not be primarily remembered as the scholar of Welsh legal manuscripts or as a politician sympathetic to the language. He should be remembered as the leading racist politician of the post-war era; as a man whose vision of the nation was wholly at odds with the genuine political and social inclusiveness that the new Welsh Assembly will foster.