“It was not even a sell-out: it was a handout, with virtually nothing demanded or even bargained for in return”, an angry Arthur de la Mare, the former British High Commissioner in Singapore, wrote to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in November 1971. De la Mare was reflecting on the handover of the British military bases to the Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) government between 1968 and the end of December, when the remaining British forces would depart from Britain's chief base in Southeast Asia. De la Mare castigated his colleagues for conceding the bases to Singapore without retaining a say in their deployment for economic purposes. With more than a tinge of regret, he lamented, “Had we so wished we had the opportunity not only to retain all that we needed but also to transform Singapore from a doubtful military bastion (it was never a very good one) into the forward base of British business and commerce in East Asia”. It was a scathing comment on the end of Singapore's role in the British Empire.

Between crisis and catalyst

Yet, De la Mare's remarks also reveal much about Singapore's emerging new place in world history as a development-driven, industrial state at the end of the 1960s. They lend support to a new approach that extends beyond the imperial and national history frameworks within which narratives of the British withdrawal have usually been located. Imperial historians such as John Darwin, looking through a Britain lens, typically focus on its struggles to maintain a world presence in the 1960s and the convoluted process by which this ‘East of Suez’ policy was finally abandoned (Darwin 1988, 1991). When the call to pull out was finally made in January 1968, some historians have attributed it to the force of economics, particularly the sterling crises of 1966-67 and the devaluation of the pound in November 1967 (Darby 1973; Butler 2002; Hyam 2006). Other historians have pointed rather to the political actors: specifically, the cabinet reshuffle that undermined the old guard which had supported the ‘East of Suez’ policy (Darwin 1988; Pickering 1998).