By Alan Riley @ProfAlanRiley1
via UkraineAlert
If Winston Churchill were still with us, he would surely be advising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ignore international pressure to call elections. Much like Ukrainians in 2023, the British in 1940 were fighting a war of national survival. Every October for five consecutive years, the wartime British government led by Winston Churchill obtained legislative consent to postpone scheduled elections and extend the life of the sitting British parliament.
Churchill’s reasons for doing so were obvious and in many ways apply equally to today’s Ukraine. In 1940, Britain sought to avoid the distraction and potentially divisive impact of elections in order to maintain national resilience and focus all its energy on the war. The Churchill government also recognized the impracticality of holding an election with millions of displaced people across and beyond the nation, and saw that it would be virtually impossible to ensure a fair test of public opinion with Britain under daily attack and engaged in a global war.
Voice of Ukraine 