British Empire was called, began in 1948 and lasted until 1960, but by 1957, Britain felt confident enough to grant independence to the Federation of Malaya within the Commonwealth. In 1963, the 11 states of the federation together with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo joined to form Malaysia, but in 1965 Chinese-majority Singapore was expelled from the union following tensions between the Malay and Chinese populations. Brunei, which had been a British protectorate since 1888, declined to join the union and maintained its status until independence in 1984. In 1951, the Conservative Party returned to power in Britain, under the leadership of
Caning in Malaysia retained as a form of legal penalty after the Federation of Malaya declared independence from Britain in 1957. It is largely a legacy of British colonial rule and has nothing to do with "Islamic justice" even though the majority of the Malaysian population are Muslims. Sections 286–291 of the Criminal Procedure Code lay down the procedures governing caning, which is referred to as "whipping" in the Code in accordance with traditional British legislative terminology. The procedures include the following: Boys aged between 10 and 18 may be sentenced to a maximum of ten strokes with a light rattan cane. The