During the inter war years British Foreign Policy was based on the premise of protecting British interests and avoiding becoming entangled in another war. The policy of appeasement was simply an extension of this. It must be understood that this policy was extremely popular both with politicians and the general public. People remembered the horror of the First World War and did not wish to see a repeat. It is worth remembering that evidence suggests that the Government manipulated public opinion by controlling the information that the public received. Even if this was the case, it is clear that the public of Britain were not keen to be involved in another war regardless of how the Government may have manipulated their opinion in favour of appeasement.

There were however critics of the Policy of Appeasement, but they were in the minority.

The Conservative Party

Within the Conservative Party (which was by far the most dominant party in the National Government) criticism of appeasement was muted. Winston Churchill was the main critic. Some of his supporters were Duff Cooper, Brendan Bracken, Harold MacMillan and Robert Boothby and at following the Anschluss Anthony Eden the Foreign Secretary. Churchill accused Chamberlain of betraying the British national interest by refusing to stand up to Hitler's aggressive demands. Churchill was the most prominent anti-appeaser. His views seemed to be based not on sound and realistic facts, but often of his own anti-German prejudices. Few in the Conservative party were willing to go along with Churchill. By and large he was seen as as a war-monger and yesterdays man.

The Labour Party

The Labour Party had no real alternative to appeasement. They opposed it, but also opposed rearmament. Hitler could only be stopped by force after the Rhineland and Britain would not be strong enough by rearming. Labour was strongly in favour of the League of Nations, but the League was never a realistic option and was an irrelevancy after Abyssinia. All, the Labour Party offered was opposition to Hitler without any clear policy to back it up. The unions along with the Labour Party opposed appeasement. Their view was that money should be spent on improving social conditions rather than on rearmament.

The Liberal Party

The Liberal Party also opposed appeasement and like Labour had no real alternative to the policy.

The Press

Several newspapers were not supportive of  the appeasement policy. Amongst them were the Manchester Guardian, The Daily Worker and the Daily Herald. The press by and large were supportive of the policy of appeasement. A notable cartoonist whose work is well worth studying), who opposed appeasement was David Low. His work appeared in the Evening Standard.
 

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