The British alignment with South Africa at the United Nations in the years 1946 to 1960 seems simple enough to explain. A British government preoccupied with protecting its economic and strategic interests in South Africa (or even just its economic interests there) supported South Africa in this international forum until the domestic and international reaction against apartheid forced a limited change of British policy; and though in 1961 the British government joined the majority of nations represented in the General Assembly in admonishing South Africa, it continued to resist Assembly initiatives which threatened those same economic and strategic interests for many years to come. This is a familiar explanation of Anglo-South African relations at the United Nations (UN), though a far from accurate one.

For the first fifteen years after the Second World War, the British government was indeed South Africa's leading ally on the issues that most directly concerned South Africa at the UN: the future of South-West Africa (Namibia), the treatment of ‘Indians’ in South Africa and the ‘race conflict’ there. The British government backed the Smuts government's initial attempt to incorporate South-West Africa within the Union of South Africa and supported the South African contention that the UN could intervene in the administration of South-West Africa only with the agreement of the South African government itself.