“Churchill was no inperialistic opportunist.”
The hell he wasn’t. You might want to look up his military career. Also, look at how he switched political parties when it suited him. He was an opportunist for much of his younger life.
Much of what the British Empire did cannot be equated to what other empires did, at all. Equating them is a common tactic that leftists use.
We’ve already had one thread on a story that attempted to discredit Churchill’s staunch opposition to Islamic imperialism, based on a letter supposedly written some eight years after “The River War”. And one thing in particular I admire about Churchill was his similar view towards communism; one thing that the world ought to regret was not following his insistence to “strangle (Bolshevism) in its cradle”.
I see nothing in particular in Churchill’s military career that showed in him ulterior motives for expanding the British Empire for no other reason than to conquer new lands. He was a military correspondent for a great part of that career, not a conquering general.
Incidentally, Churchill’s switch to the Liberal Party in 1904 was due to disagreement with the Tories over increasing tariffs and protectionism. Which is not typically imperialist in outlook. Also, given the relative size of Britain to its empire, it would have instead undermine the Empire’s economic outlook rather than bolstered it.