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feared that a situation much worse than Glubb’s was heading its way if they lost

‘both the Ruler and Belgrave’. 652

The Foreign Secretary submitted a situation paper to the Cabinet on 14 May

on Britain’s position in the Gulf. In it Lloyd asserted that the NUC does ‘not openly

attack the British connection’ and that the Movement was directed against

Belgrave’s centralisation of powers and not ‘against him as an Englishman’. He

expressed his concern that the anger with Belgrave will be turned against HMG. 653

With the threat of strikes persisting by the NUC, the Ruler established a

direct contact point with the Party. On 15 May Sheikh Salman met with four

members of the NUC at his palace and this was to develop into a series of meetings

between the two sides. The meeting started with the NUC’s objection towards the

presence of Belgrave at the meeting. During the meeting an agreement was reached

to the formation of Health and Education Councils with half appointed and half

elected members, a matter that had been agreed upon the previous year. However

the new arrangement was to exclude members of the ruling family as appointed

members on the Councils and for Councils to have the right to nominate their own

Chairmen. The NUC also objected to the formation of the Administration Council

since it did not include elected members. The Ruler during the meeting agreed to

the NUC’s cris de coeur to relax censorship laws by adopting new print regulations.

Further discussions were postponed to 20 May. 654 Al-Shamlan, E Fakhroo, Kamal-

652 TNA, PREM 11/1472, M.105/56, Secret: Prime Minister’s Personal Minute, 10 May 1956.
653 TNA, CAB 129/81, C.P. (56) 122, Persian Gulf: An Analysis of our Position and Problems, 14 May
1956.
654 TNA, FO 1016/467, Burrows to FO, 15 May 1956.

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