Stock Photo - Brigadier John Enoch Powell, MBE (16 June 1912 û 8 February 1998) was a British politician, linguist, writer, academic, soldier and poet. He was a Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) between 1950 and February 1974, and an Ulster Unionist MP between October 1974 and 1987. He was controversial through most of his career, and his tenure in senior office was brief. He held strong and distinctive views on matters such as immigration, national identity, monetary policy, and the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union. He is remembered for his controversial 1968 Rivers of Blood speech in opposition to mass Commonwealth immigration to Britain; this resulted in him being sacked from the Shadow Cabinet.