Appeasement is the foreign policy of making concessions to an aggressive power to avoid conflict. It was championed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as a response to the rise of European fascism during the late 1930s, culminating in the Munich Agreement of 1938 that ceded the Czechoslovakian territory of Sudetenland to German annexation. Although appeasement was popular at its time of implementation, the policy has since been highly criticized for allowing German expansionism to proceed uncontested.

The British Empire was a collection of territories ruled over or administrated by Britain that covered almost a quarter of the world’s landmass in 1940. Churchill, like many of his contemporaries, was a staunch imperialist firmly in favor of maintaining the British Empire. Prior to WWII, the empire was Britain’s main source of international power and prestige, but it declined in the post-war years due to growing independence and anti-colonialism movements, leaving the present-day British Commonwealth in its place.

A motion or vote of confidence, called a “motion of no confidence” if raised by the opposition, is a proposal put forth to Parliament to determine whether the government still has the necessary support of members of Parliament to command a majority over key issues.