Peace campaigner? July 5, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Mr Gove, a former journalist, [who] wrote a pamphlet in 2000 called Northern Ireland: the Price of Peace in which he compared the agreement to the appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s and the condoning of the desires of paedophiles.
The Scottish-born Brexit campaigner said the agreement was a “rigged referendum”, a “mortal stain” and “a humiliation of our army, police and parliament”.
He’s not all sweetness and light today, either:
Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC on Sunday, Mr Gove said: “I am glad about the peace process in Northern Ireland but, looking back, I think it could have been handled in a different way.”
“I believe that in standing up for the unity of our kingdom and standing up against violence and intimidation I am standing up for values that the majority of people in this country share,” he added.
Hmmmm.
Is that pamphlet online anywhere?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
It is indeed. https://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/111220142628-thepriceofpeace2000MichaelGove.pdf
Essentially thinks the IRA could and should have been militarily defeated and peace imposed through military force.
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Thanks Pidge, skimming through it over a cup of tea the kindest one could say of it is that it is the historical equivalent of illiterate.
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Elsewhere the IT notes that this former Murdoch lackey now enjoys the endorsement on an unworthy and ungrateful recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize (for the very same GFA): David Trimble!
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at least twice recently I have read that Gove is ‘am intellectual’ – is there any evidence for this?
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F O’T being right – again. (life has become very confusing)
The Government has to speak very, very clearly about this: Northern Ireland is not an English shire but a distinct polity with a recognised right to determine its own future – within the EU.
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I think FOT’s involvement with DIEM 25 is lending him perspective.
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In my darkest moments I reflect on how the new Little Britain dispensation is going to need a few relatively inexpensive wars to distract the population from their rapidly sinking incomes and disappearing social services.
Why not in Ireland, again? Or a Scotland that decides on independence.
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Not Scotland: that’s where they park the submarines.
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But if the Scots insist they get their submarine nukes out? I can see a English garrison in the heart of Scotland.
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Guantanamo Loch?
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Think of Cyprus too, the 2 massive British bases on that island (Akrotiri and Dhekelia)
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Plenty of less televised opportunities in Africa, Middle East and parts of Asia – gotta fight the Moslem overseas or you’ll be fighting them in Islington, know wot i mean?
All they need is a steady drip of military funerals and mass civilian slaughters, no one ever looks any deeper.
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Let’s not worry too much. He is glad about the peace process in Northern Ireland. Looks very unlikely that he will end up as Tory leader in any case.
Whoever does, May or Leadsom or whoever, will more than likely continue supporting the peace process and the current dispensation.
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They’re not doing a very good job of supporting it as things stand. Theresa Villiers (a Brexit Tory) has been waging an ardent campaign over the last year or so to undermine judicial inquiries into abuses by the state forces. Just a week before the vote she refused to accept the findings of the report on Loughinisland (that would have required her to apologize for her earlier comments; she repeated them instead). If there’s any crisis in the North, don’t trust any of these f**kers further than you could throw them to do the right thing.
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+1
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Yes – May is by association and instinct a thoroughgoing securocrat admirer and sponsor.
One thing that won’t be cut is domestic surveillance, policing and repression under her leadership.
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“Don’t trust any of these f**kers further than you could throw them to do the right thing.”
Honestly, I’m pretty sure that would apply to anything regarding the Tories. And in my more cynical moments any politician.
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Oh absolutely. Wrt the ‘peace process’ there are more f***ers that I wouldn’t trust further than I could throw them than you’ve had hot dinners, mate.
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Backtracking to what somebody thought 15 years ago about the Northern Ireland peace process has its pitfalls. Individuals can change their minds in the light of events over time. For instance, the DUP adamantly declined to be involved in the talks leading up to the GFA – yet Paisley and McGuinness later became the chuckle brothers. I think back to the 1972 referendum debate on Southern Ireland’s entry to the then EEC – so many on the Left and in Official SF then warned that the Irish economy would become captive to Euro capital and Irish identity would be massively erased [some of that happened & some didn’t]. Do we now hold those campaigners and what remains of their parties to account for how they may handle today’s critical issues? Theresa May seems to be a candidate more acceptable to the Tory Party mainstream than Gove IMHO.
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I think that’s generally a fair point but listening to the Guardian Politics Weekly Podcast this week wouldn’t give one any hope about Gove. According to two panelists who know him and have known him for the three decades or so he’s a ‘zealot’, extreme ‘hardliner’ and hardline on issues like Northern Ireland. Which would make one think that his views as expressed in the pamphlet from the early 2000s linked to today may not have changed any great extent since then.
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Would De Rossa who called for internment at one point be that far away from Gove’s thinking at that time?
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You could have a point there Roddy, certain similarities of approach.
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Though not by 2000 when Give wrote his thing.
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Iirc De Rossa’s call for internment (or again iirc his call that interment be considered) was after the Teebane massacre. https://www.google.ie/url?url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teebane_bombing&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjXtLiitdzNAhXLDsAKHQNRD3QQFggTMAA&usg=AFQjCNG_7zD—aRZz1ISgDTdVuzQIoznw
I was in the WP at the time and I remember criticism of De Rossa’s statement from northern-based members. They said it showed that De Rossa didn’t understand their situation. The split was imminent so they weren’t going to miss an opportunity to criticise him, even if some of them possibly secretly agreed with internment and maybe much worse for some of their non-Party enemies.
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