ABSTRACT
Enoch Powell’s name is regularly associated with the UK Independence Party (UKIP): the question of ideological proximity resurfaces in the media, fuelling a controversy which was first raised by Nigel Farage himself when he explicitly acknowledged Powell as his political hero in a 2008 interview. This chapter explores the direct and indirect connections between Enoch Powell and UKIP, that is to say, the actual links between the two as well as their ideological commonalities. Dissociating himself from Powell’s legacy on immigration, and particularly from his Birmingham speech, was a necessary step to try and detoxify the UKIP brand. Populism is a major ingredient of what has been UKIP’s winning formula. Powell and UKIP explicitly refuse to be labelled “anti-European” and turn the argument around. Enoch Powell already used this line of reasoning in 1971: The word “European” has been appropriated to membership of the Community.
