NZ First MP stirs up the 'rivers of blood'

By AUDREY YOUNG political reporter

New Zealand First is drawing on Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech as the party campaigns post-election against New Zealand immigration levels.

Deputy leader Peter Brown, who himself emigrated to New Zealand from Britain in 1964, said New Zealand was "too good to stuff up".

"I am ashamed of what the British have done to parts of the country I have come from," said Mr Brown.

If New Zealand persisted with 53,000 approvals a year, it was heading the way of Britain.

"I'm saying to [Prime Minister] Helen Clark, 'Don't say somebody didn't warn you.' This has got the potential to be a big, big problem."

When Enoch Powell, Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South-West, made his famous speech in 1968, he had been railing against immigration of 50,000 into a British population of 55 million - not New Zealand's 53,000 into four million.

"The average Englishman has paid a price for mass immigration in that country," he said. "New Zealand is at the crossroads. If they want to open the doors to 53,000 a year, then let's bear in mind there will be a heavy price to pay by the average New Zealander."

Immigration had turned parts of Britain into ghettos, many so dangerous you would not get out of your car.

Since Mr Powell's speech there had been race riots in several parts of London, Birmingham, Stoke, Dudley, West Bromwich, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Bristol, Liverpool, Bradford, Oldham and Burnley.

"This is the result of immigration and the failure to have cultural mix."

Mr Brown said he was not worried about where immigrants came from. "I am worried about whether they come to mix in and assimilate with us and the quantity and quality of the people."

Helen Clark said she was "shocked that any New Zealand MP would think Enoch Powell's views on race relations were appropriate because they are deeply shocking.

"Britain today is a modern, affluent Western democracy with rather higher living standards than our own," she said yesterday after returning from laying a foundation stone for a Sikh temple in Takanini.

"That has been built upon generations of immigration of the best and brightest from other countries, including our own."

Asked if she believed Britain's immigration policies had worked, she reiterated it was "a modern multiracial country with higher living standards than our own and high standards of justice, civil rights, human rights".

She said she had raised the Enoch Powell comparisons at the Takanini ceremony, and the reaction from the Sikhs was that many of them had died in Gallipoli as well.

"Before wild and loose allegations are made about their contribution to Britain, people should have a good look at the history book."

NZ First was trying to replace National as the main Opposition.

"They think they have pushed a button on race issues and no doubt they will keep pushing it.

"But the 10 per cent they got falls somewhat short of Mr Le Pen in France," she said in reference to the anti-immigrant presidential candidate. "And that says something good about New Zealand."

Mr Brown said Helen Clark's view of Britain today as a modern, multicultural society was narrow.

"She can say that from riding in flash limousines and high-class hotels and talking to people in Downing St.

"I'll take her, if she's inclined to go, to places where I was brought up and I challenge her to walk down the street with nobody with her. She wouldn't dare do it."

British Opposition leader Edward Heath called the "rivers of blood" speech "racialist" and sacked Mr Powell as shadow secretary for foreign affairs and defence. He never again held a senior political position.

Mr Powell had said: "As I look ahead I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman [Virgil] I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."

Mr Powell was an MP for 24 years. He died in 1998, aged 85.

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