The focus in the preceding chapters has been on the complicated negotiations leading to an Ulster-type merger between Singapore and Malaya. The story of Malaysia would be incomplete without an analysis of how that crucial piece of the jigsaw, the Borneo Territories, was eventually put in place for the realization of the Malaysia Plan. At the outset, the Malayan Prime Minister had made it clear that Singapore would be incorporated into the Federation only on condition that the Borneo Territories were brought in first. Indeed, his grudging attitude towards merger with Singapore stood in striking contrast to his almost unbridled enthusiasm for the Borneo Territories to be brought into the Federation. However, despite Malayan interests and British intentions — British officials generally agreed that the political future of the Borneo Territories lay in an association with a larger Federation — the amalgamation of the Borneo Territories with the Federation of Malaya and Singapore was not going to be a straightforward affair. Colonial officers were concerned that the vast disparity in social and political development between the Borneo Territories on the one hand and Singapore and Malaya on the other would make any form of federation of these territories untenable. Yet, the British Government was determined to press ahead with the association of the Borneo Territories with the Federation of Malaya, without which the latter would not accept merger with Singapore. If Malaya could not bring the Borneo Territories into the Federation, merger with Singapore would be jettisoned. Without merger, the Government in Singapore would fall, and this would result in the loss of the use of the base, a worst case scenario for the British. This chapter explains why the proposed federation of the Borneo Territories with Malaya and Singapore was not as plain-sailing as the British and Malayans had hoped, as well as the circumstances, events and tactics employed by the British and Malayans that eventually secured the entry of North Borneo and Sarawak into the Federation.

British Plans for the Borneo Territories

In contemplating the political future of the Borneo Territories, political backwardness of the two territories had been of primary concern.