Brigadier John Enoch Powell, MBE was an English politician, classical scholar, linguist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament , Ulster Unionist Party MP , and Minister of Health . He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made a controversial speech on immigration, now widely referred to as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. In response, he was dismissed from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath. Thirty years later Heath commented that Powell's remarks on the "economic burden of immigration" had been "not without prescience."