Fintan O'Toole: Gove's cocaine use may explain his attack on the peace process

So now we know: it was the drugs. Michael Gove, a key figure in the creation of Brexit and a contender to be the next British prime minister, was dosing himself with cocaine before writing his columns and pamphlets "about 20 years ago". That is when he published a long polemical essay called The Price of Peace. It is an important document. Gove is what passes for the intellectual driving force behind Brexit. The Price of Peace is an attack on the Belfast Agreement. If you want to understand the inherent hostility to the peace process that is at the heart of the Brexit project, you have to read it.

Knowing what we now know, it is easy to see at least some of these effects in Gove's polemic

But now, you can read it as a set of symptoms. Which of us, at some point in our lives, has not had to utter those mortifying words prompted by some painful memories of offensive nonsense spouted the night before, “Oh God, I’m so sorry. It was the drink talking”? We can now, surely, look forward to the Brexiteers shame-faced apology for the drivel they have spouted about Northern Ireland – that wasn’t really Michael, it was just Charlie talking.

The short-term physiological effects of cocaine use include dilated pupils and increased body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. Knowing what we now know, it is easy to see at least some of these effects in Gove’s polemic. Dilated pupils? Check. Gove’s vision was undoubtedly askew. He could not see the big picture of conflict resolution but only an assault on all things moral and British (terms that are, of course, synonymous): “The Belfast Agreement has, at its heart … an even greater wickedness. It is a capitulation to violence, a validation of terrorism which has led ‘demilitarisation’ – the removal of the British army from our sovereign territory – to be rendered as the equivalent to ‘decommissioning’ – the placing beyond use of illegally-held criminal arsenals. The moral stain of such a process will prove hard to efface. It is a humiliation of our army, police and parliament. But, worse still, it is a denial of our national integrity, in every sense of the word.”

Nazis

Overheated rhetoric and rising blood pressure? Check. Michael/Charlie insisted on drawing parallels between the Belfast Agreement and the appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s. The word “appeasement” appears eight times in the pamphlet, culminating in this coked-up rant: “The men who opposed Munich found the Government of their time capable of manipulating the Royal Family to bestow a special sanction on a flawed policy. Those who warned of the consequences of appeasement in the Thirties were derided as glamour boys, renegades and warmongers. But if it were not for their opposition then who would there have been to rescue the nation from folly?”

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Or, as we might now say: 'Michael thinks he's Winston Churchill when he's coked out'

This, of course, exhibits another classic symptom of cocaine use: a ludicrous grandiosity. In the throes of a cocaine rush, users may feel what the online Urban Dictionary calls "cocainomania", defined as a "false sense of grandeur under the influence of cocaine". It cites an example of proper usage of the term: "Dave thinks he's all powerful when he's coked out. He's got some serious cocainomania." Or, as we might now say: "Michael thinks he's Winston Churchill when he's coked out." Because his pose in The Price of Peace is as a long voice who may now be derided by flabby liberals as a warmonger but who will in time be recognised as having rescued the nation from the folly of appeasing the IRA.

Extreme paranoia

In high doses, say the medical experts, cocaine use can lead to extreme paranoia. One suspects that Gove may have done a few extra lines before writing The Price of Peace because the paranoia is turned up to 11. It goes off the scale as Michael/Charlie identifies the creation of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission as the end of British civilisation as we know it: "Creating a culture of children's rights would allow sons to sue fathers and mothers pursue daughters for slights real or imagined… Creating new rights to eradicate 'disablism' would mean that institutions such as the police, fire service or army would no longer be able to discriminate in favour of the able-bodied… Creating new rights for transsexuals again allows common sense to be supplanted by legal intrusion. Will new rights to marry, adopt and enter any job of their choosing be extended? And if so, at what cost to the dignity, stability and durability of our tested notions of married life?"

Trojan horse

For Michael/Charlie, the Belfast Agreement was, in his words, a Trojan horse carrying into the citadel of Britishness the enemies that would burn down Britain and leave the fire brigade unable to put out the flames because it is full of disabled transsexuals (sniff). It would create the dystopian nightmare of children suing their parents (sniff), wheelchair users in the army (sniff) and the stability and durability of married life, embodied presumably by such fine characters as Gove's then buddy Boris Johnson, forever gone (sniff, sniff).

At least now we know – it was Class A thinking from a Class A mind. These insights from the Boy from the White Stuff are not to be sniffed at.