John Enoch Powell, MBE (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, linguist, writer, academic, soldier and poet. He was a Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) between 1950 and February 1974, and an Ulster Unionist MP between October 1974 and 1987. He was controversial through most of his career, and his tenure in senior office was brief. He had strong and distinctive views on matters such as immigration, national identity, monetary policy, and the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union. He was dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet for his controversial and widely remembered 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to mass Commonwealth immigration to Britain.