There does seem to be a popular perception that the RAF were on the brink of defeat in the Battle of Britain, and only saved when the Luftwaffe switched its focus from airfields to large scale attacks on London in September. There is a nub of truth to this; Fighter Command losses were outstripping replacements in late August/early September, and training had been cut back so replacements were scarcely combat-ready. Hugh Dowding was concerned that Fighter Command were going downhill and instituted a system by which squadrons were categorised as Class A (a full complement of combat-ready pilots), Class B (up to six non-operational pilots) or Class C (at least three fully operational pilots), the latter being based in the North and Scotland where new pilots could gain more flying experience before being thrown into combat - even at the height of the Battle fighter squadrons were based all around Great Britain, not just the south east

Both British and German intelligence was faulty, though; the British overestimated the size of the Luftwaffe, so were geared for a drawn-out war of attrition. The Germans underestimated the size of the RAF; both sides overestimated the number of kills scored, reinforcing the German idea that Fighter Command was all but wiped out by September. According to Richard Overy's The Battle of Britain: Myth and Reality Goering was informed in early September that Fighter Command had been reduced to a strength of 100 serviceable fighters; on 6th September they actually had 738 operational aircraft, with a further 256 in stores ready for despatch; Ken Delve's Fighter Command: 1936-1968 has a figure of 944 aircraft, 710 of which were serviceable on September 5th.

Something that's often overlooked is that though the Luftwaffe's overall size was considerably larger it was the fighter squadrons, particularly Bf 109 squadrons, that were critical to establish air superiority, and numbers there were more even (a strength of 1,107 single engine fighters in June 1940 according to Williamson Murray's Strategy for Defeat). Britain was producing twice the number of single engine fighters as Germany during the Battle, and had the advantage of being able to recover pilots who bailed out or force landed, unlike the Luftwaffe. Fighter Command pilots had 48 hours of leave every two weeks, and squadrons served for an average of three weeks in 11 Group, bearing the brunt of the fighting in the South East, before being rotated to one of the quieter groups for a period prior to September; there was little rotation or leave for German pilots. Apparently Luftwaffe veterans of the Battle would ask to see each other's appendectomy scars, a case of "appendicitis" being one of the few ways of getting away from combat for a time.

The Luftwaffe's switch to bombing London did indeed give Dowding some respite, but even prior to that the situation was not as critical as sometimes portrayed. Grass airfields were difficult to put out of action long-term; from 8th August to 10th September thirteen 11 Group airfields were attacked over 40 times in total, but only two were unfit for flying for more than a few hours. Luftwaffe intelligence failed to identify the crucial sector stations that controlled interceptions, even if they had been pinpointed most bombing was not accurate enough to hit precise targets. As you say, even if the most southerly airfields became untenable Fighter Command could have pulled back, husbanding its resources in case of invasion.

In terms of a peace camp, pacifism and disarmament movements were popular in the early 1930s but, with the rise of fascism, declined over the decade, and though there was still some support for appeasement and isolationism the Munich Crisis of 1938 and declaration of war (mostly) unified the country. There were, as Angus Calder puts it in The People's War, a few "Conservatives in high places who still hankered for an agreement with Hitler", but anti-Semitic right-wing patriots, who might seem to have common ground, hated Hitler "as a reincarnation of Kaiser Wilhelm, if nothing worse, and fought to defend the British Empire from the Huns"; Mosley's British Union of Fascists had dwindled to almost irrelevance. The Communist Party had been fervently anti-Nazi but were placed in a very difficult position by the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, pre-war party secretary Henry Pollitt being forced to step down after abruptly reversing his initial enthusiastic support for the fight against Germany. The Communist Party tried to frame the war, like the previous one, as an imperialist conflict, but that was a difficult message to sell to the more moderate left, and though there was still a strong desire for peace amongst many in the Labour party it was generally outweighed by "detestation of Hitler".

Military setbacks in Norway and France did result in some 'pockets of defeatism', though still very much a minority - "The belief that Britain will triumph eventually is universal", according to a Home Intelligence Morale Report of 21st May; a mid-June Gallup poll showed only 3% of the population believed Britain might lose the war. As an article in the New Yorker magazine put it: "It would be difficult for an impartial observer to decide today whether the British are the bravest or merely the most stupid people in the world. The way they are acting in the present situation could be used to support either claim..." (Juliet Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939-1945). In government, Halifax was prepared to at least consider a peace offer at the end of May, though thought it unlikely that any such offer would be acceptable, but was alone in the War Cabinet in this stance.

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