• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Was Winston Churchill a Hero?

by Noah Carl
10 September 2024 5:30 PM

In recent years, Winston Churchill has come under sustained attack from the Left. During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the words “Was a racist” were scrawled across his statue in Parliament Square. Then in 2021, the Cambridge College that bears his name hosted a conference, ‘The Racial Consequences of Mr. Churchill’, where academics took turns to denounce him as a “white supremacist”.

Fast forward to 2024, and the British Bulldog is under attack from the Right. Speaking on a recent episode of the Tucker Carlson Show, amateur historian Darryl Cooper (of the Martyr Made podcast) claimed that Churchill was “the chief villain of the Second World War” on the grounds that he was “primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did”. What’s more, Cooper made his provocative claim after having been introduced by Carlson as “the most important historian in the United States”.

This is not the first time Churchill has been attacked from the Right. Pat Buchanan made similar claims in his 2008 book Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War – as have others. However, it’s certainly the first time (at least for a while) that a Right-wing attack on Churchill has received such an uncritical reception on such a large platform.

Unsurprisingly, Cooper’s statements provoked uproar on social media, with many accusing him and Carlson of being “Nazi apologists”. I should mention that Cooper later clarified on his Substack that his statements were “hyperbolic” and not meant as a defence of Hitler. By way of analogy, Cooper explained that when he criticises the IDF he doesn’t feel the need to denounce Hamas in the same breath because Hamas’s conduct is so obviously wrong.

In response to the Cooper controversy, various academics and pro-Churchill pundits have come out to correct the record. Some have taken pains to emphasise that far from being a “villain”, Churchill really is the “hero” of popular mythology – revisionists be damned.

For my own part, calling him “the chief villain of the Second World War” seems pretty ridiculous. However, this doesn’t mean Churchill is immune from criticism. One decision that has long plagued his legacy is the alliance he formed with Joseph Stalin. Which wasn’t just a rhetorical alliance, as Sean McMeekin notes in the Spectator. Britain sent the Soviet Union huge amounts of military aid, sometimes at the expense of its own forces. And the Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky wrote in his diary that Churchill privately supported Soviet annexation of the Baltic states.

Churchill’s defenders argue this was all realpolitik, and he correctly saw Nazi Germany as the primary threat to British interests. But it’s worth pointing out that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were both expansionist powers which threatened the European order (as well as being authoritarian dictatorships that engaged in mass murder). By the time Churchill allied with Stalin, the latter had already invaded Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

Two days after Hitler invaded Poland, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Two weeks after that, Stalin also invaded Poland. Yet Britain didn’t merely refrain from declaring war on the Soviet Union. As Prime Minister, Churchill ‘rewarded’ Stalin with a formal military alliance. And it’s not as if Soviet expansionism was welcomed by the affected populations. When the Nazis occupied the Baltic states during Operation Barbarossa, they were initially greeted as liberators by people who saw the Soviets as the greater evil.

In 1939, Britain clearly wasn’t in a position to take on Hitler and Stalin simultaneously. And Churchill may have been right to focus solely on defeating the Nazis, even at the cost of making a ‘deal with the devil’. (He famously quipped, “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”) However, it is not unreasonable to question the wisdom of allying with Stalin. Nor it is unreasonable to suggest that his “hero” status might not be fully deserved.

An earlier version of this article stated that Churchill declared war on Nazi Germany. This has been corrected.

Tags: Darryl CooperTucker CarlsonWinston Churchill

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Weapons of Law

Next Post

White Flying Instructor Sues Ministry of Defence for Race Discrimination Over EDI Recruitment Policy

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

101 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

In Episode 35 of the Sceptic: Andrew Doyle on Labour’s Grooming Gang Shame, Andrew Orlowski on the India-UK Trade Deal and Canada’s Ignored Covid Vaccine Injuries

by Richard Eldred
9 May 2025
4

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025
by Dr Raphael Lataster

News Round-Up

11 May 2025
by Will Jones

Major British Chemical Plant Faces Closure as Energy Prices Soar

10 May 2025
by Will Jones

NHS Nurse “Forced Out for Mocking Trans Flag” to Sue Hospital

10 May 2025
by Will Jones

The Backlash to the War Against Boys

11 May 2025
by Noah Carl

News Round-Up

28

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

30

Miliband Plots Surge in Wind Farm Subsidies to Rescue Net Zero

19

Major British Chemical Plant Faces Closure as Energy Prices Soar

16

The Backlash to the War Against Boys

11

Declined: Chapter 18: The Unthinkable

11 May 2025
by Molly Kingsley

The Backlash to the War Against Boys

11 May 2025
by Noah Carl

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025
by Dr Raphael Lataster

Reflections on Empire, Papacy and States

10 May 2025
by James Alexander

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

10 May 2025
by Ben Pile

POSTS BY DATE

September 2024
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  
« Aug   Oct »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences