FORMER for Islwyn MP Neil Kinnock has said Enoch Powell is “winning the argument from his grave” over the European Union.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement programme the former Labour leader hit out at anti-EU sentiment within the Conservative Party.

“What we’ve got is an isolationist tendency in the Conservative Party which has become more substantial,” he said.

“In a sense Enoch Powell from his grave has been winning the argument.

“I regret that.

“It doesn’t apply to all Tories, far from it, but there is an activist element, a zealous element, an ideological element almost that has pulled that party in the other direction.”

Lord Kinnock also served as European Commissioner and vice-president of the European Commission during his political career.

In his now-infamous Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 Conservative minister Enoch Powell criticised proposed immigration policy.