Michael Gove on the fanatical ideologues of Islam and Republicanism

Perhaps Michael Gove reads ‘Three Thousand Versts’. The Shadow Secretary for Children, Schools and Families has drawn parallels between hate filled republican ideologues and hate filled Islamist ideologues. He asks,

“How can anyone in Northern Ireland justify a recourse to murderous violence for political ends when the political process is so determinedly inclusive and every tradition is carefully respected? And how can any British citizen, however opposed to any Government policy, ever think it right to slander, barrack and abuse young men who have risked everything in the service of this country?”

The answer?

“The hatred that drives the Real IRA is a product not of blind killing rage but the bitter fruit of ideological commitment. The ideology of Irish republicanism, which celebrates blood and martyrdom and holds that the sacrifice of innocents is a price worth paying that Ireland may be free of perfidious Albion, has the murderers of Massereene barracks in its grip. What drove them to kill was a belief their acts were sanctified by a belief system which gave them warrant to operate outside the ordinary rules of law and morality.

In the same way the protestors who hurled the foulest abuse at the Royal Anglians as they celebrated their homecoming in Luton felt no shame because they believed their outrage was justified by the ideology they serve. For the extreme Islamists, Britain is a land of barbarism, and will remain so until it accepts sharia, acknowledges that Muslim lands should be fused into a new caliphate and the black flag of Islam flies over 10 Downing Street.”