Racism is alleged to have existed in the Conservative Party since at least 1964. Conservative shadow defence minister Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in 1968 was both influential and widely regarded as anti-immigrant with racist overtones; the party's leader at the time, Edward Heath, condemned it, although some Conservative MPs defended Powell's speech. Since then, accusations have been made about several leading members of the party and its policies; these have related to prejudice against non-white people.
For specific allegations of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim prejudices (often linked to racism), see Antisemitism in the UK Conservative Party and Islamophobia in the UK Conservative Party.
History: 1950s–70s
Winston Churchill
In 1955, the then Leader of the Conservative Party, Winston Churchill expressed his support for the slogan "Keep England White" with regard to immigration from the West Indies.
1964 general election
In the constituency of Smethwick during the 1964 general election, supporters of Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths were reported to have used the slogan "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour". The Conservatives always denied the slogan was theirs, saying it was the work of far-right activists; neo-Nazi British Movement leader Colin Jordan later claimed responsibility for originating the slogan. However, during the campaign, Griffiths did not condemn the phrase and was quoted in The Times as saying, "I should think that is a manifestation of popular feeling. I would not condemn anyone who said that", adding that the quote represented "exasperation, not fascism".
In 1964, a delegation of white residents of one Smethwick street successfully petitioned the Conservative council to compulsorily buy vacant houses to prevent people of colour from buying them. Richard Crossman, Labour housing minister, prevented this from happening by refusing to allow the council to borrow money to enact their policy.
Griffiths was a personal supporter of segregation. Of apartheid in South Africa, he said "Apartheid, if it could be separated from racialism, could well be an alternative to integration."
Tim Stanley of The Telegraph notes that while "there were pockets of racism on the Left as well as the Right ... there's no denying that the Tory fringes became a bastion of ugliness that the present-day party is still trying to distance itself from". He goes on to argue that this campaign had two legacies — initially, the degradation of race relations in the UK, which consequently "poisoned the debate over immigration" in the UK by "drag[ging] politics into the gutter".
Enoch Powell’s "Rivers of Blood" speech
The racialised debate and discourse over immigration in British politics are said to have become popularised by Conservative MP Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in April 1968, and the clamping down on postwar "new Commonwealth" non-white immigration, while allowing concessions to the white-majority "old Commonwealth" (i.e. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada). Reactions to the 1968 Race Relations Bill, which Powell's speech was aimed against, were considered "a turning point from biological racist discourses to cultural racist discourses", with Powell being the chief articulator of this "new racism" in British politics.
When asked whether he was "a racialist" by journalist David Frost, Powell said:
However, it was seen as a racist speech by many commentators, both at the time and today. The Times said in April 1968, following the speech:
Edward Heath also said in 1968 that the speech was "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions", and The Times went on to record incidents of racial attacks in the immediate aftermath of Powell's speech. Despite this condemnation, according to most accounts, the speech was actually popular among a majority of the white British population at the time. The popularity of Powell's perspective on immigration may even have played a decisive factor in the Conservatives' victory in the 1970 general election.