UK Politicians Should Be Wary of Playing the Race Card

In 1968, in full knowledge of the outrage it would cause, Enoch Powell, a defeated candidate for the Tory leadership, warned of a race war to come unless non-white immigration to Britain was halted. Powell, hitherto admired for his formidable independent intellect, cited the fears of a constituent that “one day the Black man will hold the whip hand over the White.” The political establishment shuddered in disbelief — and fear that Powell’s message would prove popular.

The so-called Rivers of Blood speech was the last time in Britain that a mainstream politician played the race card so nakedly. But will it be the last? Some tribunes of Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party, Reform UK, and even a few ambitious Tories, are flirting with a political language that hasn’t been heard in polite society for half a century.