ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Enoch Powell’s early political thinking, with particular attention given to his views on empire and European integration. It describes Powell’s wartime views, stressing the continuities in his thinking since the 1930s and highlighting the ways his world view differed from that of Winston Churchill. The chapter also looks at Powell’s interest in promoting greater imperial co-operation in the early post-war years, when he was influenced by ideas of imperial federation. Powell’s political awakening began in the 1930s and was influenced by his travels throughout Europe, particularly in Mussolini’s Italy. But Powell was always idiosyncratic in his thinking, and people can only speculate how they would have positioned themselves in the Brexit debates. Of particular interest is the scholarship on the idea of the “Anglosphere,” most notably Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce’s work on the subject.
