Politicians Who ‘Make the Weather’

Welcome back, in making the weather six politicians who changed modern Britain Vernon Bogdanor delves into the lives and Legacies of six influential British politicians who’ve shaped the nation’s contemporary landscape they are; Nigel Farage, Aneurin Bevan, Roy Jenkins, Tony Ben Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell. To Enlighten us on his chosen six I’m joined by Vernon Bogdanor, lovely to see you welcome to GB News and broadly speaking why did you pick the six and what was the thesis because everything they said makes them still alive today, we’re still discussing the issues they raised.

Last week there was discussion about the National Health Service now that was Aneurin Bevan’s creation, we’ve had a lot of talk recently about immigration Enoch Powell was the first to raise that and of course Nigel Farage has raised it and it was the key cause of Brexit which Nigel Farage was champion. Then we have a lot of discussion about the market economy which Keith Joseph championed and there’s a lot of talk about participation which Tony Benn championed, he was the first in Britain to advocate the referendum which is now part of our Constitution and finally Roy Jenkins who raised the issue of proportional representation which ironically is championed by Nigel Farage because contrary to what Roy Jenkins hoped it wouldn’t help the centre it would help the far right.

Interestingly reading your book I was struck by the fact that you and I knew that is say at least had met five out of the six so in both our cases we didn’t meet Aneurin Bevan but we’re somewhat familiar with the others, let’s turn to Enoch Powell for a moment, you say that he raised the subject of immigration which is indeed a very big subject with us today.

What Enoch said in a speech that I must say was I think laced with racist terminology what he said was that he foresaw bloodshed arising from immigration and you somewhat poo poo that in your book, but I put it to you that a lot of people would say well yes there’s been Islamist terrorism, there have been bombings on trains, there’s been the murder of a member of parliament by an Islamist terrorist and there’s been the terrible bombing of a concert involving a lot of children, but you kind of say no Enoch got it wrong, there wasn’t bloodshed after immigration, do you want to explain why you think that?

Well, on the whole and there are blemishes of course but ethnic relations in Britain has been a success story if you look at his constituency recently It was won by a Sikh and then after that by someone whose parents came from the West Indies and after all we’ve just had an Asian prime minister we could have a person of colour as leader of the conservative party, on the whole ethnic relations have been a success but of course there are serious blemishes and you’ve mentioned one of them and that is a great problem which we have to deal with.

I mentioned a second one which is exercising the Labour party which is that the number of seats that Labour thought it would win were actually won by candidates whose basis for winning was the situation in Gaza, a very sectarian position. Well, there are strong views held about the situation in Gaza on both sides and it’s right that those who feel strongly about it, who are very hostile to Israel and to the British government’s policy, it’s right that they should have a voice whether one agrees with them or not.

It’s also important of course that those who support Israel should have a voice so I’m not terribly worried about that and there are after all people far to the left of Starmer and they should also have a voice led by Jeremy Corbyn. Where Enoch struck me as perspicacious as well was in raising the question of sovereignty via our entry into what was then known as the European Community at a time when the Prime Minister Ted Heath was saying no this is all about trade, nothing to see here. Enoch was saying no, inevitably this is a process about ever closer European union and it will mean that powers will pass from the House of Commons which matter to him very much indeed, to other bodies over which we don’t have control and at least for me that’s what the recent Brexit referendum was about.

You give marks to Enoch for perspicacity otherwise he wouldn’t be in your book? I think no absolutely and this is his main legacy, I think that he raised its issue about the sovereignty of parliament he said Parliament cannot share power with any other body, whether it’s Brussels going upwards or downwards through devolution and his particular worries about the European Union which as you say were perspicacious, were that we lost control of our laws, our finances and we had to accept the rulings of a foreign Court, his worries about Devolution was that it was a halfway step towards separation and towards the end of his life in 1997 when the Blair government was elected which favoured Devolution Enoch Powell said to his wife they have voted to break up the country now we don’t know whether that’s true or not, the jury is still out but as you say this is his main contribution.

Yes, the jury is out on all these issues, it depends over what period of time you measure them, interestingly I mean Enoch is a frustrating figure because I think he was only a minister for 18 months in his life, he was a difficult man to work with, it’s almost as though he refused to take ministerial responsibility, he preferred being right in his own terms and being on the outside rather than being on the inside, so some of your figures although they have coloured the debate they have not been very directly influential.

Which one has been the most influential? Which one has bent British Politics the most?

I would say the two most influential ones were Keith Joseph and Nigel Farage and in a way Nigel Farage is the most remarkable because until two months ago his influence was exercised entirely outside Parliament and of course he’s never been in government, but Brexit, whether you’re in favour of it or not and I wasn’t, I have to confess but it’s the most important foreign policy decision we’ve made since the war and without Nigel Farage it might not have happened and he’s responsible.

I think for destroying three conservative Prime Ministers; David Cameron, Theresa May and more recently Rishi Sunak so I think his influence has been quite enormous, he’s much underestimated as a politician. Yes, well I entirely agree with you and I think your book just stopped short of the 2024 general election so we can now add also that he has reduced the Conservative party to its lowest rump in the House of Commons since records began more or less.

Absolutely and if you add up the total of the Conservative and Reform vote it’s much higher than the Labour vote it’s about 38-39% whereas the Labour party got 34%. In 2019 when Boris Johnson was the leader of the Conservative party Nigel Farage stood down candidates in Conservative constituencies and that helped Boris Johnson win. This time he opposed every Conservative and that destroyed Rishi Sunak, yes and by the way Enoch claimed that he’d put Edward Heath in in 1970 and taken him out in 1974 because of the way he expressed first support and then opposition to the Conservatives.

I just want to turn the telescope around for a moment and ask you this question; we’re talking about people here who didn’t make it to number 10 and yet were influential. Is it because those who did make it to number 10 were part of an establishment and actually what these figures to some extent represent is an anti-establishment movement and vote so from time to time in history someone who may not appear very representative of the population like Tony Benn, Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage takes up a position which makes people so indignant against the establishment that they are propelled one way or another to heights that could not be imagined. That’s absolute right, Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn were unhappy with the postwar settlement they wanted to push it to the left, Powell, Joseph and Farage wanted to push it to the right, Roy Jenkins was happy with the settlement but thought it needed constitutional change to preserve it particularly proportional representation and that’s one of the reasons why he left the Labour party.

You’re absolutely right about that point and these six they saw issues that other people didn’t see, they were very perspicacious as you said earlier, they were also brilliant communicators and, in my view, Nigel Farage is one of the few good communicators today in politics, certainly a better Communicator than Rishi Sunak or Starmer who, whatever their other qualities are not very good at communicating with voters. So, Vernon Bogdanor it’s been a delight to hear your very clear communication today and congratulations on the book.