Enoch Powell: blood speeches and anniversaries

"That division of labour and specialization of production should be bounded by international frontiers is to some extent inevitable because men have differences other than economic ones, such as political and racial, and value certain other aims more highly than economic aims."

It brutally states the case of familiarity over difference, the prospect of dangers in mingling the two. There were the nations "closely connected politically and racially as the British Dominions"; then there were those differences "between European and Asiatic nations." There could be no "redistribution of population" between India "and other nations, especially European nations."

Historical nuance can be a drag, but Powell continues to remain the kryptonite of political discussion. Even after all these years it was deemed controversial to even broadcast the Birmingham speech in full, as if taking a few snippets of it (read, hacking off most of it) would somehow do service to balanced meaning.

Andrew Adonis, Labour member of the House of Lords, deemed the speech "the worst incitement to racial violence by a public figure in modern Britain" insisting the BBC not broadcast it in an act of pre-emptive responsibility. Censorship was his implausible suggestion, given that any politician, were he to make a similar speech today "would almost certainly be arrested and charged with serious offences."

Anyone who challenges the established notion that EP was an off-his-head racist is similarly shouted down. "He wasn't a racist in the crude sense," claimed UKIP Wales leader Neil Hamilton, a qualification that might have been better stated. "Powell actually changed politics by articulating the fears and resentments of millions and millions of people who are being ignored by the establishment." True envy indeed.

Twitter offers very view avenues for explanation but is delightful for vitriol and reflex stomping. Powell was hardly going to get much of a hearing at the hands of Leanne Wood in Wales, who had already considered him a sharpened spear to be used by UKIP. "If anyone was in any doubt that UKIP are ideologically far right, listen again to their Assembly leader justifying Enoch Powell's racist speech on @BBCRadioWales. UKIP are keeping Powell's racist rhetoric going."

It is precisely the snippets, the cuts and incisions made to speech – and in some cases total prohibition – that make subsequent interpretations flawed, even dangerous. Rarely are incitements to hatreds the products of lengthy observations about a state of affairs. More often than not, they stem from one portion, a slice, a section.

Political figures have tended to avoid Powell like the pox but Brexit Britain is, to a large extent, a continuation of one strand of dominant resentment alluded to fifty years ago. The concept of the inclusive integrated society battles that of those beyond accommodation. Anxieties remain.

Where hashtags count for substantive discourse, Powell will not so much rank as burn. His words will be taken into an orbit of social media mash, and then re-delivered in unrecognisable form. The BBC will be attacked for conveying the fuller picture, even in the context of historical analysis. In its effort of balance, which was bound to be criticised, the Beeb's statement of explanation for broadcasting the speech on Radio 4's Archive on 4 was credible as it was desirable. "It's not an endorsement of the controversial views themselves and people should wait to hear the programme before they judge it."