© Hulton Deutsch / Getty ImagesEnoch Powell
The speech by Conservative government minister Enoch Powell was first delivered during a conference in Birmingham 50 years ago. Powell was sacked from his role of shadow defence spokesman by the Conservative party's then leader, Edward Heath, amid claims his words incited violence.
Now actor Ian McDiarmid has been tasked with delivering the full incendiary speech as part of a BBC program airing on Saturday. But the announcement sparked outrage among the public, with critics saying the speech - which calls for a policy to repatriate foreigners - should not be given a platform.
Labour peer Lord Adonis, a frequent critic of the corporation, filed an official complaint to UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, saying: "The BBC claims in its advance publicity that this is some kind of artistic enterprise broadcast provides a unique opportunity to hear the speech in full."
He went on: "As a special tribute to the 50th anniversary of 'rivers of blood', the BBC is broadcasting the full text of the most incendiary racist speech of modern Britain that was not even broadcast at the time."
However an Ofcom spokesperson responded, saying they cannot judge on broadcasters' editorial content before transmission.
One of the contributors to the program, University of Wolverhampton academic Dr Shirin Hirsch, herself said she was no longer comfortable with how the show is being presented.
The public has also had its say, with some tweets calling the BBC's move a "creepy normalization of racism."
The BBC hit back, saying the speech would be dissected bit by bit and "rigorously" analyzed. In a statement it said: "Many people know of this controversial speech but few have heard it beyond soundbites. Radio 4's well-established program Archive on 4 reflects in detail on historical events and, in order to assess the speech fully and its impact on the immigration debate, it will be analyzed by a wide range of contributors including many anti-racism campaigners.
"This is a rigorous journalistic analysis of a historical political speech. It's not an endorsement of the controversial views and people should wait to hear the program before they judge it."
Comment: To prevent the broadcast on weak claims of incitement is a slippery slope to censoring our past. Would these same people ban the airing of Hitler's speeches? How can you learn from history if you don't know what happened?
What is prescient is the extremely contentious topic of mass migration, whether refugee's fleeing the West's illegal wars, or economic migrants, who also often tend to be victims of the West's voracious greed:
- Italy's Matteo Silvini supports Trump and his policies - conservative, populist, anti-establishment and anti-immigration
- More Hungarians share Orban's 'common sense' immigration stance than just his party supporters
- Austria's coalition with far right party to take back control from Brussels and resist EU centralisation
Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis