Enoch Powell elected Tory leader in 1965

[swanarcadian]

Most of us here will know that Enoch Powell, who seems to be a hot topic of late, stood in the 1965 Conservative Party leadership election and came third polling just 15 votes.  

But supposing he had somehow been elected leader.  He undoubtedly had a strong effect on the electorate as a whole.  It may be a coincidence that the Tories secured a record 28% opinion poll lead in May 1968, the month following the Rivers of Blood speech - it was midterm and just following the local elections - but there was certainly a great deal of public support for the speech which will have contributed towards it.  The result in Wolverhampton, South West in Feb '74, showed the effect of his departure from the Commons and the circumstances surrounding it.  It may have made the crucial difference in those Midland seats between Heath securing a majority or falling short.

How would Powell have fared against Wilson?  Might we have never entered the EEC?  I'm imagining an alternative scenario where Powell sacks Heath in April 1968 for making a speech advocating unlimited, mass immigration (far-fetched, but still a slightly amusing idea).  Perhaps much of Thatcherism (minus the initial pro-EEC support) might have been enacted before Mrs. Thatcher herself had a chance to enact it.

[Deleted]

The country would be like Australia. Strict immigration quotas and a points based system and totally independent of the EU. He would not have initiated his more racial ideas.

[pragmaticidealist]

If Powell had polled, say, 50-60 votes in the 1965 contest then Heath would have seen him as a more serious threat to his position in the late 1960s and perhaps would have been more reluctant to sack him.

[Sibboleth]

He would have been forced to resign due to the Thalidomide scandal and his role in it so...

[carlton43]

It was PCP that was his weak area. He was much more popular in the membership and in the electorate. If by means of a quite different voting mechanism he had pulled off even a paper-thin victory he would have remodelled the party and massaged the candidate selection through sympathetic constituency officers. We would have picked up a very substantial ex-Labour and normally non-voting vote, shed the Heathite (multi-cultural and European) elements, and romped into a massive 150+ majority. Everything thereafter would have been so much better as we skipped into the sunlit white uplands forever............Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[slon]

It would have been the usual car crash when demagoguery meets reality.

Jeremy Corbyn beware.

[Deleted]

Now also suppose there was no 1966 election and the Wilson government falls shortly before the Rivers of Blood speech - massive Tory landslide in a May 1968 election?

[slon]

May 1, 2018 11:19:02 GMT @boogieeck said:

He would not have made that speech. Which should suggest to his supporters that the speech was not his finest hour.

What was his finest hour then?

[No Offence Alan]

In brief,
Labour still win a landlside in 1966;
Labour cling on with a wafer thin majority in 1970;
Powell replaced by Heath;
Labour get the shit of the 3-day week and the miners' strikes;
Britain comes to its senses and prospers under a succession of centrist Tories:
Heath, then Heseltine, Rifkind and Cameron.

[carlton43]

May 17, 2018 7:23:28 GMT No Offence Alan said:

In brief,
Labour still win a landlside in 1966;
Labour cling on with a wafer thin majority in 1970;
Powell replaced by Heath;
Labour get the shit of the 3-day week and the miners' strikes;
Britain comes to its senses and prospers under a succession of centrist Tories:
Heath, then Heseltine, Rifkind and Cameron.

As I remember it living through that period I cannot agree your first premise.  If Powell had gained the Leadership he would have swiftly transformed the party and given the constituencies their heads to massage the candidates leading to a purged slate and very different policies. He would have been so popular in WWC Labour held seats that there would have been no election in 1966 but a general collapse leading to either a forced election in say 1967 after a confidence vote loss or a struggle through to 1969 with a devastating Labour defeat followed by an earlier and more effective form of 'Thatcherism' embracing a broader sweep of policies and a general transformation of the whole political landscape in a fundamental manner. 

Heath and Heseltine depart the party, Rifkind probably makes no progress and Cameron never joins. Thatcher a very effective cabinet minister and I would probably have been a minister.  

[johnloony]

There would have been a famous photo of Salvador Dali on a pogo stick and a famous photo of Enoch Powell walking his pet anteater