A village shop is being investigated by police over the display of a portrait of Enoch Powell alongside his most controversial anti-immigration speech.
Mumfords, an ironmonger in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, has a framed picture of the divisive former Tory MP in its window along with an excerpt of his 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech.
Shopkeeper Elizabeth Griffiths said she put the photograph in her window in February to highlight the “need for strong assertive leadership during tough political times”.
But West Mercia Police said it was treating the display as a “hate incident” after receiving a report on 16 May of “offensive content”.
Mr Powell caused a national political firestorm when he used inflammatory language to criticise immigration to the UK in a 45-minute speech to local Conservative members at a Birmingham hotel.
The former Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West said white British people would find themselves “strangers in their own country” as a result of migration.
He was sacked from the Conservative front bench for making the speech and it outraged his senior colleagues at the time.
A hate incident is any non-criminal offence that a victim thinks is motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer was accused of copying Mr Powell’s words when he warned that the UK was becoming an “island of strangers” while vowing to crack down on immigration.
Sir Keir said he would “take back control” to slash the number of people coming to the UK as the country “risks becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.
Norwich South MP Clive Lewis said: “It’s simply not sustainable for the prime minister to echo the language of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech. This kind of language doesn’t just alienate communities, it drives people away from our country altogether.”
Downing Street rejected comparisons made with Mr Powell, who is a political hero of Reform leader Nigel Farage, and said Sir Keir “absolutely stands by” his language.
Ms Griffiths told The Independent the picture had been in her shop window since the first week of February and she had received “nothing but praise for all the time it has been there”.
She said it was put there alongside Sir Winston Churchill, St Francis of Assisi, “our Lord Jesus Christ”, Churchill mugs and books on Churchill and Donald Trump.
A West Merica Police spokesperson told The Independent: “On 16 May we received a report of offensive content displayed in a shop window on Church Street in Cleobury Mortimer.
“This is being treated as a hate incident and enquiries are ongoing.”
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