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In a sudden general election later in 1974, Powell returned to Parliament as an Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, having rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the National Front. He was a strong believer in the United Kingdom, and he believed that it would only survive if the Unionists strove to integrate fully with the United Kingdom by abandoning the devolved rule that Northern Ireland had recently enjoyed. He refused point blank to join the Orange Order (who largely controlled the UUP after their split from the Conservative Party) - the first Ulster Unionist MP never to be a member (and to date only one of two, the other being the former UDR member Ken Maginnis), and he was an outspoken opponent of the more extremist Unionism espoused by the Reverend Ian Paisley and his supporters.
Though he was on supposedly good terms with Margaret Thatcher (she claimed her own monetarist policies stemmed from Powell's, to which he remarked drily, "A pity she did not understand them!"), he came into conflict with her in 1985 in protest because of her support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement, resigning his seat and then regaining it at the ensuing by-election. Powell lost his seat in 1987, mainly due to both demographic changes and boundary changes resulting in there being many more Catholics in his seat of South Down than before. Ironically, the boundary changes had arisen due to his own campaign for the number of MPs representing Northern Ireland to be increased to the equivalent proportion for the rest of the United Kingdom, as part of the steps towards greater integration.
Despite his earlier atheism Powell became a devout Anglican later in life and became a warden of Westminster Abbey. He spent much of his later life trying to prove, with close textual reading, that Christ had not been crucified but hanged.
Powell appeared in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public). The BBC History Magazine commented: "Powell's career was a total failure and with luck he will be forgotten".
His speeches and TV interviews throughout his political life displayed a suspicion towards "The Establishment" in general, and by the 1980s there was a regular expectation that he would make some sort of speech or act in a way designed to upset the government of the day and ensure he would not be offered a Life Peerage (and thus transferred to the House Of Lords), which he had no intention of accepting so long as Edward Heath sat in the Commons. He had opposed the 1958 Life Peerages Act and felt it would be hypocritical to accept a life peerage himself, while no Prime Minister was ever willing to offer him a hereditary peerage.
Powell had remarked that "all political careers end in failure" and did not hesitate to agree that this maxim applied to his own. Like Tony Benn (a personal friend from a different political background), his legacy as one of the last of the old-style politicians that put conscience and duty to his constituents before loyalty to his party or the sake of his career looks set to endure in an age where slick presentation and draconian controls over political party members is set to remain the norm.
The world is full of evil men engaged in doing evil things. That does not make us policemen to round them up nor judges to find them guilty and to sentence them. What is so special about the ruler of Iraq that we suddenly discover that we are to be his jailers and his judges? 1990
Britain's fondness for America has turned this country into something horribly resembling a satellite of the United States. 1983
A party is not the private property of its leader. 1973
Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price. 1973
Often when I am kneeling down in church, I think to myself how much we should thank God, the Holy Ghost, for the gift of capitalism. 1968
Toryism is about enjoyment. 1966
Hospital building is not like pyramid building, the erection of memorials to endure to a remote posterity. 1961
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