By 1960 the Colonial Office, Commonwealth Relations Office and Ministry of Defence of the Government of the United Kingdom had reached a consensus that the merger between Singapore and Malaya, and the eventual incorporation of the Borneo Territories, individually or as a unit, into the newly extended Federation to form a Greater Malaysia should constitute the “ultimate goal of British policy in Southeast Asia”. Preliminary soundings among British officials serving in the territories concerned had unanimously indicated that the Grand Design — the establishment of a Federation incorporating Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei — was a logical policy that would serve well the interests of all concerned. Independence would be given to the remnants of the British colonies in Southeast Asia, and the post-independent political and economic viability of these erstwhile, smaller colonies (for whom the British regarded there was little future in individual independence or even independence in association together)1 would be enhanced by their amalgamation into a bigger, more stable Federation. The inclusion of the North Borneo territories into a Malaysian Federation would effectively thwart whatever territorial designs Indonesia and the Philippines might harbour on those colonies. Most importantly, Britain's strategic and defence concerns and obligations in the region denoted “East of Suez” by policy-makers would in no way be diminished by the process of de-colonization. London would be able to create a friendly Commonwealth bloc in the region, containing an “independent” Singapore whose military bases would still be available for British use, with the added advantage that the thorny issue of internal security in Singapore would no longer be a British concern, but a burden for Kuala Lumpur to bear. All things considered, the formation of Greater Malaysia promised to be a propitious end to formal British Empire in Southeast Asia.

Reactions among the local politicians to the idea of a wider Malaysian Federation were, however, more varied. Since its separation from Malaya in 1946, all shades of political opinion in Singapore were agreed that the island-colony had no long-term political future on its own, and would eventually find its way back into the fold of its natural hinterland — the Malayan peninsula.