Not-so-little Britain

It is almost 40 years since Enoch Powell delivered his notorious speech on immigration to the Annual General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre on 20 April 1968. ‘As I look ahead,’ said Powell, ‘I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”.’

That Virgilian prophecy has not come to pass, but the effect of Powell’s incendiary speech — combined with the restrictive power of town hall ‘multiculturalism’ in the 1980s — was to make level-headed discussion of immigration all but impossible. That discussion is now, at last, beginning — better late than never — and it could scarcely be more important.

This week, the Office of National Statistics predicted that, a decade hence, there will be 65 million people in the UK — an increase of five million — and that by 2031, the population will be over 70 million.