Michael Gove forced to apologise for comparing pro-EU experts to Nazi propagandists
David Cameron says his fellow Tory has 'lost it' after likening those warning about Brexit to those who smeared Einstein
BREXIT leader Michael Gove was forced to issue a grovelling apology today after comparing pro-EU experts to Nazi propagandists.
It followed a personal attack from David Cameron - his friend and cabinet colleague - who said he had "lost it".
Ahead of a Vote Leave campaign walkabout on the south coast the Justice Secretary said it was a mistake and said he'd tried to avoid personal attacks during the campaign.
He said: "It was clumsy and inappropriate. Obviously I did not mean to imply anything about the motives of those who have spoken out in favour of staying in the EU.
"Throughout the campaign I’ve avoided making personal attacks, I'm sorry for speaking so clumsily, and apologise for giving offence."
It came after the Prime Minister told Sky News: "To hear the Leave campaign today sort of comparing independent experts and economists to Nazi sympathisers - I think they have rather lost it.
“These people are independent - economists who have won Nobel prizes, business leaders responsible for creating thousands of jobs, institutions that were set up after the war to try to provide independent advice.
“It is right to listen.”
The incident was sparked by comments by Mr Gove on LBC yesterday, when he likened the warning by economic experts about the effects of Brexit to the Nazis who orchestrated a smear campaign against Albert Einstein in the 1930s.
He said experts cannot always be trusted by pointing to the German scientists who denounced the famous physicist to back up his point.
“I think the key thing here is to interrogate the assumptions that are made and to ask if these arguments are good,” he explained.
“We have to be careful about historical comparisons, but Albert Einstein during the 1930s was denounced by the German authorities for being wrong and his theories were denounced, and one of the reasons of course he was denounced was because he was Jewish.
“They got 100 German scientists in the pay of the government to say that he was wrong and Einstein said: ‘Look, if I was wrong, one would have been enough’.”