UK minister compares Brexit opponents to Nazi campaign against Einstein

Britain’s justice minister likens some opponents of the campaign to have Britain leave the European Union to Nazis behind the smear campaign against Albert Einstein in 1930s Germany.

Michael Gove, who co-chairs the Vote Leave campaign working for Britain’s exit from the EU in the national referendum being held Thursday, made the comparison the previous evening in an interview with LBC radio.

“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,” says Gove.

Gove was speaking about economists who in the buildup to the vote warned that an exit would have dire consequences for the British financial establishment and market. Prime Minister David Cameron and many of the ruling party’s lawmakers also oppose leaving the European Union.

Elaborating on the Einstein comparison, Gove adds: “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.’” Gove urges listeners to “interrogate the assumptions that are made.”

Noting low growth rates in continental Europe and high unemployment, he says that “freeing ourselves from that project can only strengthen our economy.”

— JTA