However, when we come to consider the present predicament of Europe, faced as it is by multiple threats, above all from Russian aggression and Islamist anarchy, what is most striking in British foreign policy is its continuity. One of Winston Churchill’s finest hours was his speech in the House of Commons on October 5, 1938. It was a philippic against the policy of appeasement immediately after the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had returned from Munich proclaiming “peace in our time”, to what Churchill himself acknowledged as “the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment”. Churchill was thus almost alone in his defiance of the consensus, and his speech was repeatedly interrupted, but he was undeterred: “What I find unendurable is the sense that our country is falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure . . . We do not want to be led upon the high road to becoming a satellite of the German Nazi system of European domination.” The British, he declared, “should know the truth. They should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”