Enoch Powell (PJW)

Enoch Powell was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1975 to 1979.

The leader of the Conservative Party, Powell took power after successfully passing a vote of no confidence against the Crosland Labour Government and then defeating them in a general election. Powell promised to restore order to a nation plagued by continental refugees and rebelling Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalists. Powell closed the borders to immigrants and escalated the military's crackdown against nationalists.

For a good amount of time Powell's tactics worked and the nationalists were subdued. Powell focused his policies inward, and thus had little interest in sorting out the warfare on the continent nor in Southeast Asia. Britain's membership in the Northern Coalition was called into question, as trade wars and skirmishes between Canada and Scandinavia threatened to tear the alliance part. Britain took Canada's side in the argument, resulting in high British and Nordic tensions.

Nevertheless, Powell felt his popularity was high enough to call for a general election in 1979. 1979 was a brutal election year as there were another round of nationalist terrorism. The Labour leader, Tony Benn, promised to hold an referendum that decided the future of the United Kingdom: each of the four regions would decide whether they remained in the United Kingdom or not. Benn caught up to Powell in the polls, and there was bitter mudslinging as the election was incredibly close. The tipping point came when documents were leaked (it would later be found that the leaker was Labour MP George Wigg) revealing that the earlier Conservative government of Rab Butler had sold nuclear secrets to the Nordic Council in exchange for economic privileges and help in the war in Southeast Asia. Powell would lose the general election, and would subsequently resign as leader of the Conservatives.