How Close Was Britain to a Negotiated Peace?

There was a very reasonable chance that on the different leadership Britain could have entered into a negotiated peace. That was, after all, what Chamberlain and other people in the British government had been expecting from the outbreak of war in September 1939. The decision when it was taken wasn't simply a matter of Churchill's personality or rhetoric but reasoned argument debated by this war cabinet as I said for three days. It was really seriously up for grabs for a while as to whether we would enter into negotiations with Mussolini and then eventually bring Hitler into play. So I think at that time in the end of May 1940, there was a serious chance that we could have brought about the negotiated end to the war -