Winston Churchill's views on race and empire have been the subject of sustained historical debate. Formed through direct participation in British imperial campaigns in India, Sudan, and South Africa and shaped by the racial hierarchies that underpinned late Victorian imperial thought, Churchill held and expressed views on race throughout his life that ranged from paternalistic assumptions about colonial subjects to assertions of white Anglo-Saxon superiority.

Historians have assessed these views in sharply different ways. Critics such as Richard Toye and Priyamvada Gopal argue that Churchill's belief in a racial hierarchy, and the policies it informed, constituted racism whose consequences have been minimised in mainstream accounts of his legacy. Others, among them Andrew Roberts and Paul Addison, contend that applying the contemporary concept of racism to Churchill misrepresents the intellectual world in which he operated, and that his record, including his opposition to antisemitism and consistent support for Zionism, complicates any simple characterisation.

The debate has moved well beyond academic circles. The vandalising of his statue in Parliament Square during the 2020 protests, alongside debate in academic publishing and public broadcasting, has made Churchill's racial attitudes one of the most contested aspects of his legacy in contemporary Britain.

Views of Churchill towards race According to historians John Charmley wrote that Churchill viewed British domination around the globe, such as the British Empire, as a natural consequence of social Darwinism. Charmley argued that similar to many of Churchill's contemporaries, he held a hierarchical perspective on race, believing white Protestant Christians to be at the top of this hierarchy, and white Catholics beneath them, while Indians were higher on this hierarchy than black Africans.

According to Richard Toye, he states that it's "factually correct" for one to say that Churchill was a racist. Toye also argues that Churchill's perspectives were not singular, and while Churchill may have harboured the belief in the superiority of white individuals, it does not necessarily imply an endorsement of inhumane treatment towards non-white individuals.

Paul Addison says Churchill saw British imperialism as a form of altruism that benefited its subject peoples because "by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them". To Churchill, the idea of dismantling the Empire by transferring power to its subject peoples was anathema – especially manifested in his opposition to the Government of India Act 1935 and his acerbic comments about Mahatma Gandhi, whom he called "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir". Some critics have equated Churchill's imperialism with racialism, but Addison among others has argued that it is misleading to describe him as a racist in any modern context because the term as used now bears "many connotations which were alien to Churchill".

Following a cabinet meeting on 20 January 1955, conservative MP Harold Macmillan noted in a diary entry that Churchill allegedly thought "...‘Keep England White’ a good campaign slogan!” with regard to immigration from the West Indies.

Priyamvada Gopal had argued that Churchill's endorsement of racial hierarchy, indicated a clear pattern of racism and criticized what she describes as the whitewashing of his record.

Other sources

Churchill advocated against native self-rule in Africa, America, Australia and India, and claimed that the British Empire promoted and maintained the welfare of those who lived in the colonies; however, other historians have challenged this view, arguing that imperial policies often caused significant harm.

In 1937, while speaking to the Palestine Royal Commission in favour of allowing Jews to settle in Mandatory Palestine, Churchill stated that:I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.In 1899, a Boer jailer asked Churchill: "Is it right that a dirty Kaffir should walk on the pavement?… That's what they do in your British Colonies". Churchill termed this the root of Boer discontent:

British government is associated in the Boer farmer's mind with violent social revolution. Black is to be proclaimed the same as white … nor is a tigress robbed of her cubs more furious than is the Boer at this prospect.

In 1906, Churchill stated that "We will endeavour... to advance the principle of equal rights of civilised men irrespective of colour".

Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the USA, reports in his diary that during a White House lunch in May 1943 Churchill "said why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution".

By the 1940s Churchill still cherished the ideals of imperialism that he had followed since the 1890s, while much of British opinion had abandoned them. Colonialism was now seen as a crude device for the oppression of the weak by the strong. After the Second World War, old arguments about white racial superiority were no longer acceptable. The British public rejected the Churchillian notion of an imperial race predestined by moral character to rule and refashion the world in the British image. Among younger Britons, especially in academic circles, criticism grew sharper. Indeed, the empire itself was rapidly disintegrating, starting with India gaining independence in 1947, and finishing up with all the African colonies becoming independent in the 1950s.Lawrence James, Churchill and Empire: Portrait of an imperialist (2013) pp 387–390.

Churchill's personal doctor, Lord Moran, commented at one point that, in regard to other races, "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin".

Disparaging remarks Churchill is held to have made disparaging remarks about non-white ethnicities throughout his life. Philip Murphy partly attributes the strength of this vitriol to an "almost childish desire to shock" his inner circle. Churchill's response to the Bengal famine was criticised by contemporaries as slow, a controversy later increased by the publication of private remarks made to Secretary for India Leo Amery, in which Churchill allegedly said aid would be inadequate because "Indians [were] breeding like rabbits". Philip Murphy says that, following the independence of India in 1947, Churchill adopted a pragmatic stance towards empire, although he continued to use imperial rhetoric. During his second term as prime minister, he was seen as a moderating influence on Britain's suppression of armed insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya; he argued that ruthless policies contradicted British values and international opinion.

Eugenics When he was Home Secretary in 1910–1911, Churchill supported the forced sterilization of the "feeble minded". In a letter to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in December 1910, he wrote "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes […] constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. […] I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed".

In 1912 he attended the First International Eugenics Congress as Vice-President.

India

Churchill made disparaging remarks about Indians. Some historians have debated whether Churchill was driven in this antipathy by imperialism or by racism. He was angered in Autumn 1930 by the Labour government's decision to grant dominion status to India. He argued that it would hasten calls for full independence from the British Empire. He joined the Indian Empire Society which opposed the granting of Dominion status. In his view, India was not ready for home rule because he believed that the Brahmins would gain control and further oppress both the "untouchables" and the religious minorities. In March 1931, when riots broke out in Cawnpore between Hindus and Muslims, he claimed that the situation proved his case.

John Charmley has argued that Churchill's denigration of Mahatma Gandhi in the early 1930s contributed to fellow British Conservatives' dismissal of his early warnings about the rise of Adolf Hitler. Churchill's comments on Indians – as well as his views on race as a whole – were judged by his contemporaries within the Conservative Party to be extreme. In 1935, Churchill invited Gandhi's friend, Ghanshyam Das Birla, to Chartwell, where he told him, "Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the Untouchables," and expressed support for the Indian nationalists and advised them on how to improve the country, saying, "I am genuinely sympathetic towards India. I have got real fears about the future. India, I feel is a burden on us. We have got to maintain an army and for the sake of India we have to maintain Singapore and Near East strength. If India could look after herself we would be delighted. … I would be only too delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are fifty Indias. But you have got the thing now; make it a success and if you do I will advocate your getting much more". Gandhi responded positively to Churchill's advice, and said, "I have held the opinion that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill".