1) Chinese middle school students were unhappy with the British.

Chinese middle
school students attended Chinese-medium schools which received little support from
the British colonial government. They had limited opportunity to pursue a
university education in Singapore. Instead, they had to go to China to further
their studies. However, during this period of time, the colonial government banned
people who visited China from returning to Singapore. This meant that students
could no longer pursue their university education unless they chose never to return
to Singapore. On top of that, students had poor job prospects in Singapore as the
jobs were reserved for the English-educated. Because they felt they were being
unfairly treated by the British colonial government, they were skeptical of the
willingness of the British to look after their interests and distrusted the
British. This was further made worse by the introduction of national service which
made the Chinese students even more doubtful that the British was sincere about
making constitutional changes and thus they did not believe in working with the
British government but instead sought to promote anti-colonial ideas.

2) Trade unions were unhappy with the British government. Trade unions were formed
under the influence of the Malayan Communist party. They were found by people who
are concerned with improving workers' conditions and felt that the British colonial
government sided with the employers and did little to protect workers' interests.
Many of them wanted immediate changes to their working conditions and protested in
the streets to secure their demands such as disputes regarding workers' pay and
working conditions. However, these demands remained resolved. There was also
suspicion on the part of the British colonial government towards the trade unions.
As a result, members of the trade union were often arrested,further increasing the
distrust of the trade union members towards the British colonial government. Thus,
many members of the trade unions were unhappy with the British.

3) Merger would lead to independence for Singapore. The British colonial government
was unwilling to Grant Singapore independence as they thought that Singapore was
too small to survive on its own. However, it was open to granting independence to
Singapore if it became part of the federation of Malaya, together with Sabah and
Sarawak. Merger would also lead to an increase in trades and the creation of more
jobs for the people of Singapore. The Malayan government introduced Taxes on goods
traded between Singapore and Malaya after Malaya became independent. Singapore
hoped that a common market could be established through merger. Trade between
malaya and Singapore would increase, creating more jobs for the people.

4) The term of the proposed merger which said that Singapore citizens were just
Malaysian nationals and not citizens, would disadvantage Singapore. Opponents to
the merger were worried that the people in Singapore would not be able to enjoy the
same rights as those who stayed in Malaya. For example, they were worried about
whether Singapore citizens could apply for citizenship in the federation, whether
Singapore businessmen would have the same rights and opportunities as businessmen
in the federation and whether the taxes on goods would really be taken off. The
term of the proposed merger which said that Singapore would leave control of the
armed forces, police and foreign relations to the central government in Kuala
Lumpur, meant that Singapore did not have complete control over internal security.
Opponents to the merger were worried that this power would be misused by the
central government in Kuala Lumpur to get rid of those who were against them or who
were suspected to be communist. For example, this term gave them the power to
arrest and detain people without trial.

5) One political reason for the separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965 was
because of the disagreements in political beliefs. In malaysia, the alliance party
formed the central government. It consisted of many different racial political
parties and each political party sought to represent the interests of their
respective community. However, the PAP government in Singapore did not support this
View and sought to represent all communities regardless of race. This created high
tension between central government in Kuala Lumpur and the PAP government in
Singapore and this soon led to serious racial riots in 1964. The disputes of the
two made the Tunku worry that the tension will not be resolved and will affect
Malaysia. Hence, he thought that it was best for Singapore to separate from
Malaysia. Another political reason for separation is because of the privileges for
the malays. Both the central government and the pap government agreed that the
malays were lagging behind the other races socially and economically. But the
central government sought to improve the social status of the malays by giving them
privileges in education, business and jobs in the government. The pap however
wanted to only give them free education as they believed that that would give them
better job opportunities. This difference in views caused tension especially since
the central government expected the pap government to follow their way of helping
the malays. The central government accused the pap of disregarding the malays and
this was expressed in Utusan melayu, a popular Malay newspaper and many malays
became angry with the pap. This caused serious racial riots in 1964, leading to
Greater tension between both governments. The Tunku then decided that the best way
to settle the dispute was to make Singapore separate from Malaysia.

6) The first reason was the disagreement regarding the common market. Common market
was not set up as agreed during merger. Singapore had hoped to enjoy economic
benefits through the common market but the central government was worried that a
common market would lead to greater competition from Singapore as there would be no
taxes on goods from Singapore. The central government delayed the setting up of the
common market and the pap government in Singapore was unhappy about the delay and
that let the worsening relationship and tension between them. The second reason was
the disagreements regarding taxation. Disagreement also arose because of taxation.
Before merger, Malaya wanted to collect revenue in Singapore and give Singapore the
amount it needed. But, Singapore wanted to collect its own revenue and send the
agreed amount of 40% to the central government in Kuala Lumpur. Although it was
finally agreed that Singapore would collect its own revenue, the central government
wanted to increase the amount of Singapore's contribution from 40% to 60%.
Singapore felt that this was unfair and this disagreement led to tension between
the pap government and the central government.