The Rivers of Blood speech - was Enoch Powell right? Or just a racist?

Robbo

Robbo

Robbo

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I've been thinking about this, I, like many, believe immigration here is out of hand. Well, it pretty much is, that much is a fact really.

I think he was brave to say what he did, it obviously wasn't going to go down very well. However, I think the point he made was a good one.

What are your views?

Wikipedia link if you aren't sure what I'm talking about - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
 
To be fair it's over 40 years ago and ""In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man" has yet to be established.

And given the demography of the UK, we are hardly awash with non-white immigrants. The problem lies in the labour policy of mass immigration over such a short time period, this has caused areas of the UK, predominantly the urban inner cities such as London to have a disproportionate level of immigration which in turn creates division and distrust.

It's about time we grew up as a society and stopped judging people by stereotypes, religion and the colour of their skin.

Immigration is fine as long as it is sustainable by the infrastructure and society into which it migrates. What we have is a diaspora from under-developed and economically poor countries into the richer, more developed ones without safeguard or quota. This is the reason we have immigration problems, not because they are a different colour or religion.

I expect this thread will degenerate into another racist bile fest, even though Robbo's intentions are above board, any sensible discussion on Immigration or Enoch Powell's speech attracts that kind of crowd. I hope to be proven wrong however.
 
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All the recent problems. Well at least regarding riots have mostly come from our own people.

I work in a place where we recruit a lot of agency and work with eastern europeans on a daily basis. They are mostly a bunch of very hard workers. Which can not be said about the millions of benefit dossers we have in this country.
 
There are issues with immigration in this country but the main issue is parts of our own population not willing to go out and earn a crust because the jobs availiable are "beneath them" or "too hard" and then when the migrants start taking the open positions in these jobs they tell us "They're stealing our jobs" when in all honesty they don't wish to work but have the world handed to them on a silver platter not that it's a huge percentage of the population that do this but they're dragging us down nonetheless.
 
Castiel said:
To be fair it's over 40 years ago and ""In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man" has yet to be established.
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No hotlinking

The phrase "rivers of blood" comes from eye witness accounts of the sacking of Rome. What we've witnessed this week wasn't the sacking of London, but it wasn't far off.
 
scorza said:
The phrase "rivers of blood" comes from eye witness accounts of the sacking of Rome. What we've witnessed this week wasn't the sacking of London, but it wasn't far off.
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A black man and a white man != the black man and the white man.

WTF my iPhone is racist. It capitalises White but not black.
 
I do not believe that you can blame immigration. Probably 99% of the trouble stemmed from british citizens, whether they could claim ancestry back to the Norman invasion or from naturalised grandparents in the 1950's.

The main demographic seemed to be youngish, probably on welfare or low paid workers, or in education.

A naturally rebellious or easily led crowd, but that does not excuse the criminality.

I believe that to have an expanding economy, you need an expanding workforce, there will always be jobs that some people will not want to do and immigration fills that void.
 
What I don't understand is how we got so many ethnic poor people in the first place?

I would have thaught that we have traditionally needed doctors, dentists, engineers, and scientists.

So serious question how do we end up with ethnic ghettos?

These should be well balanced children of our highly skilled immigration workforce...

I can understand some will slip the net but surely we didn't let in everyone who applied even if they were only cleaners or corner shop owners?
 
scorza said:
The phrase "rivers of blood" comes from eye witness accounts of the sacking of Rome. What we've witnessed this week wasn't the sacking of London, but it wasn't far off.
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Nonsense. To begin with the quote was a pejorative of his quoting from the Aeneid, (As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood".) nothing to do with eyewitness accounts of the sacking of Rome of which there were several throughout history.

The recent riots in London and to a lesser extent in other English cities are not even remotely comparable to any of the examples of Rome being plundered.
 
Oxy said:
What I don't understand is how we got so many ethnic poor people in the first place?

I would have thaught that we have traditionally needed doctors, dentists, engineers, and scientists.

So serious question how do we end up with ethnic ghettos?

These should be well balanced children of our highly skilled immigration workforce...

I can understand some will slip the net but surely we didn't let in everyone who applied even if they were only cleaners or corner shop owners?
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Because when the powers that be are making immigration policy, that's the story they tell you - need highly skilled workers to provide a boost to the economy, make Britain a competitive place to do business etc. When you actually look at the immigration policy they come out with, it's all carefully designed to keep wages at the bottom low.
 
scorza said:
Because when the powers that be are making immigration policy, that's the story they tell you - need highly skilled workers to provide a boost to the economy, make Britain a competitive place to do business etc. When you actually look at the immigration policy they come out with, it's all carefully designed to keep wages at the bottom low.
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Which is all well and good until economically deprived nations entered the European Union and created an influx of low skilled and poorly educated immigration on top of the immigration from colonial countries within the commonwealth.

It's more the law of unforeseen consequences than some orchestrated conspiracy to keep wages low.
 
AmTechFox said:
He was a clever racist, but a racist nonetheless.
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Looking back, yes he was a racist. But so were a very large section of British society. He gave voice to a huge public opinion.

Landlords had notices outside their properties no dogs, no Irish, no blacks.

Youtube 'Love Thy Neighbour' to see what was actually being shown on British TV at the time. It's very uncomfortable viewing.

Thankfully we have come a long way since then.
 
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