Since the 19th century, Britain had been in the process of handing over a large number of former colonies and dependencies to locally responsible authorities, commencing with Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In 1947 India became independent as the two states of India and Pakistan and the following year Burma and Ceylon became independent. There followed many other countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Thus, the pattern had been set over a long period. Aden Colony and Protectorate were in fact among the last territories to become independent. The policy and practice had been to seek to create responsible governments in advance of independence and educate and train local people to perform the duties of government. The obvious analogy to the Aden case is Malaya and Singapore where as in Aden, a federation of the Malayan sultanates was created in 1957, two years before the Federation of South Arabia: Singapore joined that federation too, but went its own way soon after due to factors which were also present in Aden Colony – in particular, as a major port and regional entrepot, integration with and the impact of the world-wide economy which was more important to their economies and interests than their hinterland.

Clearly there were also factors influencing events in Aden which had little to do with this typical progression towards self-government but everything to do with Britain's relationship with the Arab world generally and events taking place in it. For a while – perhaps until the late 1950s – Aden seemed almost insulated against events in Egypt, Palestine, Israel and northern Arabia. However, as we know, the radio and transistor changed all that.

Pondering the matter soon after the Suez events of 1956, Governor Sir William Luce concluded that British policy in regard to Aden required amendment. In early 1958 he wrote four letters in three days, one to the Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox- Boyd and three to his Under Secretary, Gorell Barnes, which even incorporated comments on strategic and military matters considered by some to be ultra vires Luce's terms of reference. The Air Officer Commanding in Aden, Air Vice Marshall Maurice Heath, supported Luce's general thesis.