1940 British war cabinet crisis

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In May 1940, during the Second World War, the British war cabinet was split over whether to discuss peace terms with Germany or to continue fighting. Opinion on the side of continuing with the war was led by the prime minister, Winston Churchill, while the side preferring negotiation was led by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The disagreement escalated to crisis point and threatened to bring down the Churchill government. With the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the Fall of France seemingly imminent, Halifax believed that the government should explore the possibility of a negotiated peace settlement. His hope was that Hitler's ally, the still-neutral Italian dictator Mussolini, would broker an agreement. When a memorandum proposing this approach was discussed at the War Cabinet on 27 May, Churchill opposed it and urged his colleagues to fight on without negotiations. He was supported in the war cabinet by its two Labour Party members, Clement Attlee and Arthur...

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