'The Empire of England': Enoch Powell, Sovereignty, and the Constitution of the Nation.

The 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech brought back into public debate one of the most controversial figures in modern British political history. Powell remains indelibly linked to the stances he took on race and immigration in the 1960s and 1970s, but in recent years there has been a widening of the lens through which his politics and public arguments are viewed. This article contributes to this reappraisal, arguing that central aspects of his thinking were shaped by his highly distinctive reflections on sovereignty, representation, and the nation state in the early 1950s.