Churchill rejoins the Liberals?

This is a general "could it happen under the right conditions" WI.

I've been reading a few history books centered around British politics in the 1930s-50s and there seems a strong correlation that both Tories and Liberals viewed Churchill as the "last Whig" (a quote from Liberal, Violet Bonham-Carter IIRC).

Let's say there's no WWII or even if there is of some sort, Churchill doesn't come to the fore, lest alone Prime Minister (say Eden remains Foriegn Secretary and fights the hawk cause, overshadowing old backbencher Churchill).

So anyway, elections role round and the Tories take a pummeling, Labour comes in with their radical programme.

Isolated within the now seemingly wilderness bound Conservative Party, Churchill looks to the Libs, who are suffering from their long-term internal wranglings over where they sit: left or right? Would Churchill who is ideologically divided between the two parties, has a history with the Liberals, has seen his great cause of opposing Hitler snatched from him, and knows he'll probably never sit in a Tory govt. again look on the Liberal Party as a possible consolation prize? Why not end his days as leader of the Liberal Party than rot in the backbenches?

Not saying he would become leader but say Churchill feels betrayed that he hasn't returned to power in some form? He was certainly close friends with many Liberals (VB-C included), could they bring him over to try and instill a Whiggish order to the party? Figures like Gwilym Lloyd-George would certainly back him, at a time when his family name stillheld clout following David's recent death.

So ideas?
 
Churchill's opposed independence for India which was advocated by the Liberals.

Here is a possible scenario: Ramsay MacDonald does not form a national government with the Conservatives and Liberals. The Liberal Nationals do not split from the Liberals, so people like John Simon, Ernest Brown and Leslie Hore-Belisha stay with the Liberal party. Labour is defeated in a House of Commons vote of no confidence in 1932. In the ensuing general election Labour is decisively defeated, though not as badly as in 1931 in OTL when they returned only 52 MPs. The Conservatives win a sizeable majority, though not a landslide. The Liberals under their leader Sir Herbert Samuel keep most of the 59 seats they won in 1929, lose some to the Conservatives, but gain some from Labour and end up with about 50 seats.

In the 1937 general election the Conservatives under their new leader Neville Chamberlain remain the largest party in the House of Commons but without an overall majority. The Liberals win and lose on the swings and roundabouts of electoral fortune but end up with between 60 and 70 seats. They agree to support the Conservative government if it pursues liberal policies.

Anthony Eden does not resign as Foreign Secretary but fights the anti-appeasement cause in the cabinet. When the Munich Crisis arises in September 1938, Eden and three or four other cabinet ministers resign in opposition to Chamberlain's proposal to give the Sudetenland to Hitler. The Liberals announce that they will no longer support the government and Chamberlain resigns. Eden becomes Prime Minister. He persuades Daladier, the French Prime Minister, to resist Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia. Hitler uses the pretext of the killing of a Sudentland German by the Czech police to invade Czechoslovakia. However the Germans are repulsed by the Anglo-French-Czech alliance. I think in this scenario that the allies would most likely fight a defensive war and not try to overthrow the Nazi regime. However it is seriously weakened militarily and it is obliged to drastically reduce or stop its support to the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.

A sizeable minority of Conservatives are angry at what they regard as the shabby treatment of Chamberlain. More anti-Communist than anti-Nazi they regard Nazi Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

In the autumn of 1939 Eden calls a general election. The result is a substantial Labour majority and Clement Attlee becomes Prime Minister. The Conservatives lose heavily and the Liberals gain - ending up with around 110 seats, only about 20 seats behind the Conservatives.

The majority of Conservative MPs are right-wingers who can't stand Eden. They force him to resign as party leader and Samuel Hoare becomes leader. He appoints a largely right-wing Shadow Cabinet which is opposed to Eden's policy of rearmament and an alliance with the Soviet Union to stop any future aggression by the Nazi regime.

Churchill is considerably dissatisfied by the right-wing direction of the Conservative party. Sometime in 1940 he crosses the floor of the House of Commons and joins the Liberal party.
 
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