ABSTRACT
The opprobrium in which inter-war British foreign policy has been held has largely been attached to one man, devoid of party or other affiliation. Although Chamberlain, Prime Minister from 1937 until 1940, was a Conservative, British Conservatism has successfully uncoupled itself from appeasement. This is despite the fact that most of the Conservative Party stood behind the policy, to a greater or lesser degree, for most of the inter-war period; this has been forgotten, obscured or marginalised. This chapter suggests that, while there are comprehensible reasons why 'appeasement' has been used to define the 1930s, it is an unhelpful description, disguising a policy which had fundamentally Conservative features and represented continuity with Conservative forebears. A consistent feature of nineteenth-century Conservatism had been its preparedness to work with authoritarian regimes very different from Britain's, and in that respect, too, 'appeasement' fitted a Conservative mould.
