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If even a Tory Lord can call Winston Churchill a racist and a lifelong white supremacist - which he was - and a national treasure like John Barnes can describe him as a white supremacist and a mass murderer, John McDonnell describing him as a villain should not be controversial. 
Churchill called whites a "stronger race" and a "higher-grade race". He oversaw an Indian famine which killed millions, declaring that "I hate the Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
Churchill advocating gassing the Kurds, declaring himself "strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes".
Churchill admired Mussolini, declaring "If I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."
Churchill sent soldiers to crush striking Welsh miners in Tonypandy (the specific reason John McDonnell called him a "villain").
Churchill played a key role in sending the Black and Tans to Ireland during the War of Independence, during which they committed horrendous atrocities which are not discussed, let alone debated, in Britain.
In World War II, fascism was defeated with much blood and sacrifice: many of us lost relatives (me included). But it's an affront to history to reduce it to Churchill's victory. Ordinary Britons, a coalition British government and critically millions of Soviets, defeated fascism.
27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians died in World War II: without the horrific sacrifice of our allies, Nazism would have prevailed. We don't use this undeniable sacrifice to shut down debate about the record of those who ruled the Soviet Union.
We're long overdue a debate not just about Winston Churchill, but about the British Empire. We'll never understand ourselves, let alone the world, or have an informed discussion about British foreign policy or racism, without doing so. So let's not allow that to be shut down.
Yes, I expect this thread to be met with cries of treachery and general frothing at the mouth. But the airbrushing of British history - specifically, the crimes committed by British ruling elites, and the courage of ordinary Britons who won our freedoms - has to end.
By the courage of Britons who won our freedoms, I mean the trade unionists who fought for workers rights, the suffragettes, the pro democracy activists, those who fought for social reform, LGBTQ activists, anti-racists, and those who fought in World War II: we owe them all.
Oh: and what did those courageous British soldiers who played a decisive role in defeating Hitler do as soon as the war was over? They voted Winston Churchill out of office in a landslide victory for the most left wing Labour government in history.
Churchill was again defeated in 1950. In 1951, Churchill’s Tories lost the popular vote - Labour won their highest share of the vote ever (48.8% compared to 48% for the Tories), but the Tories won through the quirks of our electoral system. Churchill never won the popular vote.
