In February 1971 the Conservative Government announced its plans to withdraw British forces from the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971, in accordance with a plan originally drawn up by the Wilson government in January 1968 and accepted by the Conservatives only after they had come into office. Britain, formally in control of nine Gulf states, was to hand independence to them. The British had hoped to unite this group of states into a neo-colonial federation, the Union of Arab Emirates, but internal disagreements between the rulers have so far prevented this Union from emerging in its intended form.