Enoch Powell and the Sovereignty of Parliament - Professor Vernon Bogdanor

Enoch Powell was the most powerful postwar exponent of the idea of the sovereignty of Parliament and indeed of English nationalism, opposing the coming of a multiracial society, devolution, and entry into the Common Market, as the European Union used to be called. His ideas proved unacceptable not only to Labour but also to the Conservative Party which he left in 1974. Was he, as his supporters allege, a prophet before his time; or have developments since his death shown that his fears were groundless? This is a part of the lecture series, Making the Weather: Six politicians who shaped our age. Winston Churchill wrote of Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary at the beginning of the 20th century, that, even though he never became Prime Minister, he ’made the weather’, meaning that he played a crucial role in shaping the political agenda of his day. These lectures discuss six postwar politicians, none of whom became Prime Minister, but who, like Joseph Chamberlain, also made the weather and s