he became associated with a faction of the Conservative Party led by Lord Hugh Cecil; the Hughligans. During his first parliamentary session, he opposed the government's military expenditure[51] and Joseph Chamberlain's proposal of extensive tariffs, which were intended to protect Britain's economic dominance
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After the Whitsun recess in 1904 he crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade.
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As President of the Board of Trade he joined newly appointed Chancellor Lloyd George in opposing First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna's proposed huge expenditure for the construction of Navy dreadnought warships, and in supporting the Liberal reforms.[54] In 1908, he introduced the Trade Boards Bill setting up the first minimum wages in Britain,[55] In 1909, he set up Labour Exchanges to help unemployed people find work.[56] He helped draft the first unemployment pension legislation, the National Insurance Act of 1911.
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Churchill also assisted in passing the People's Budget[58] becoming President of the Budget League, an organisation set up in response to the opposition's "Budget Protest League".[59] The budget included the introduction of new taxes on the wealthy to allow for the creation of new social welfare programmes. After the budget bill was sent to the Commons in 1909 and passed, it went to the House of Lords, where it was vetoed. The Liberals then fought and won two general elections in January and December 1910 to gain a mandate for their reforms. The budget was then passed following the Parliament Act 1911 for which he also campaigned.
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Churchill's proposed solution to the suffragette issue was a referendum on the issue, but this found no favour with Herbert Henry Asquith and women's suffrage remained unresolved until after the First World War
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In 1911, Churchill was transferred to the office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held into the First World War. He gave impetus to several reform efforts, including development of naval aviation (he undertook flying lessons himself),[64] the construction of new and larger warships, the development of tanks, and the switch from coal to oil in the Royal Navy
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Churchill was involved with the development of the tank, which was financed from naval research funds.[68] He then headed the Landships Committee which was responsible for creating the first tank corps and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a tactical victory, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds.[68] In 1915, he was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during the First World War
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A major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".[76] He secured, from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet, intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nationand in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine
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Churchill advocated the use of tear gas on Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq,[78] Though the British did consider the use of poison gas in putting down Kurdish rebellions, it was not used, as conventional bombing was considered effective
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Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926
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[Churchill's] decision prompted [John Maynard Keynes] to write "The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill", arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world depression. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries.[82] Churchill later regarded [returning to the gold standard] as the greatest mistake of his life
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[Churchill] argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces"that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius... the greatest lawgiver among men
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Churchill opposed Mohandas Gandhi's peaceful disobedience revolt and the Indian Independence movement in the 1930s, arguing that the Round Table Conference "was a frightful prospect".[91] Later reports indicate that Churchill favoured letting Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike.
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the fall of Burma to the Japanese, which cut off Indias main supply of rice imports when domestic sources fell short .......In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India, Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadnt died yet." ( :awe: )
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Beginning in 1932, when he opposed those who advocated giving Germany the right to military parity with France, Churchill spoke often of the dangers of Germany's rearmament
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In contemporary newspaper articles he referred to the Spanish Republican government as a Communist front, and Franco's [fascist] army as the "Anti-red movement".[110] He supported the Hoare-Laval Pact and continued up until 1937 to praise Benito Mussolini
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Churchill was a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler[134] and in a speech to the House of Commons, he bluntly and prophetically stated, "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war."
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Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the war. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the successful German invasion of Norway.
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Although there was an element of British public and political sentiment favouring negotiated peace with a clearly ascendant Germany, among them the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Churchill nonetheless refused to consider an armistice with Hitler's Germany.[139] His use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war.[140] Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."[141] By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 194245, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of Soviet Union and the liberation of Western Europe.
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Churchill's good relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt secured vital food, oil and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes.[149] It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of providing military hardware and shipping to Britain without the need for monetary payment. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the US; and so Lend-lease was born
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Between 1315 February 1945, British and US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with German wounded and refugees.[165] Because of the cultural importance of the city, and of the number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, this remains one of the most controversial Western Allied actions of the war. Following the bombing Churchill stated in a top secret telegram:
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed... I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive
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As Europe celebrated peace at the end of six years of war, Churchill was concerning on the possibility that the celebrations would soon be brutally interrupted.[175] He concluded that the UK and the US must prepare for the Red Army ignoring previously agreed frontiers and agreements in Europe, and prepare to "impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire."[176] According to the Operation Unthinkable plan ordered by Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces, the Third World War could have started on 1 July 1945 with a sudden attack against the allied Soviet troops. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible.
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Churchill also argued strongly for British independence from the European Coal and Steel Community, which he saw as a Franco-German project. He saw Britain's place as separate from the continent, much more in-line with the countries of the Commonwealth and the Empire and with the United States, the so-called Anglosphere.
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Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action. One example was his dispatch of British troops to Kenya to deal with the Mau Mau rebellion.[183] Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I will not preside over a dismemberment."
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