THE former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Sir James Molyneaux, likened the Sinn Fein leader to Hitler in the Commons last night, as the party sought fresh impetus for its "integrationist agenda" at Westminster.
Meanwhile, Labour and Conservative MPs closed ranks if not doors against the republican movement in the aftermath of the Manchester bombing.
Opening the annual debate on the renewal of the direct rule provisions, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, said the bombing represented "a calculated declaration" of the IRA mind set. "They declared on Saturday that their route to political change is the violent, not the democratic, route," he said.
"We will not sit opposite people who imply there is more where the Manchester bomb came from unless we deliver across the table what they want."
The Shadow Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, told MPs. "If any party is thinking that they will get a better deal in the negotiations from Labour thinking that we will be more prepared to bully or pressurise one community or the other in order to reach a settlement, they are badly mistaken."
Speaking in the absence of the party leader, Mr David Trimble, who was attending the multi party talks at Stormont, Sir James said the events of the past seven days had swept away the inhibitions of two decades.
"We cannot now be silenced by exhortations to give peace a chance, to win the battle for hearts and minds or to turn a blind eye to perceived concessions to terrorists in the expectation that terrorists would be placated by perceived instalments of their ultimate aim," he said.
He continued. "Now we know the result, and the rescue brigade should not come to the aid of terrorists by insulting our intelligence with suggestions that contacts should be maintained and doors kept open to enable Mr Adams and his friends to regain credibility for a dishonest campaign as transparent as that waged by Hitler in 1939 and 1940 when he trampled all over eastern Europe and at the same time proclaimed himself a man of peace."
Sir James said the only real issue was the principle of consent. He went on "Consent exists in the terrorist vocabulary only for the purpose of calculating how a democratic people can be terrorised into consenting."
Against that background, he said, "no Irish government should go on reiterating demands for concessions to republican demands. The justification has disappeared now that the destruction of democracy is the asking price for a cessation of violence.
"No Irish government should itself contemplate paying that price even by instalments, nor should the Dublin Government try to pressurise any British government into considering such folly."
Sir Patrick and Dr Mowlam paid tribute to the leaders of the loyalist community for the maintenance of their ceasefire.
Sir Patrick again condemned the Manchester bombing.
He said. "Those were negotiations which Sinn Fein could have entered, to sit with other political parties for whom the electorate had voted. They could have sat down with the rest on June 10th.
"But there was no renunciation of violence by the IRA no restoration of a ceasefire that should never have been abandoned. So they excluded themselves, just as they separately absented themselves by their own decision from the elected forum."