the Birmingham pub bombings and other IRA attacks in Britain itself increased support among MPs and the public for a military withdrawal. The failure of Sunningdale, and the effectiveness of the UWC strike against British authority, to Wilson were more evidence of his 1971 statement. They led to the serious consideration in London until November 1975 of independence. Had the withdrawal occurred – which Wilson supported but others, including James Callaghan, opposed – the region would have become a separate dominion. According to the secret plan, codenamed "Doomsday", Britain would have as little to do with the new "Ulster Dominion" as possible, with financial subsidies ending within five years. It would not be an associated state of which Britain would only control foreign relations, because a war between Ulster and the Republic would involve Britain. The dominion would also not be a member of the British Commonwealth. The Northern Ireland Office cited the 1948 Newfoundland referendums—in which the island voluntarily joined Canada, its larger neighbor—as an example that divided Ireland might hopefully follow. The British negotiations with the IRA, an illegal organisation, angered the Republic's government. It did not know what they discussed but feared that the British were considering abandoning Northern Ireland. Irish Foreign Minister Garret FitzGerald discussed in a memorandum of June 1975 the possibilities of orderly withdrawal and independence, repartition of the island, or a collapse of Northern Ireland into civil war and anarchy. The memorandum preferred a negotiated independence as the best of the three "worst case scenarios", but concluded that the Irish government could do little. The Irish government had already failed to prevent a crowd from burning down the British Embassy in 1972. It believed that it could not enlarge the country's small army of 12,500 men without negative consequences. A civil war in Northern Ireland would cause many deaths there and severe consequences for the Republic, as the public would demand that it intervene to protect nationalists. FitzGerald warned Callaghan that the failure to intervene, despite Ireland's inability to do so, would "threaten democratic government in the Republic", which would jeopardise British and European security against Communist and other foreign nations. Wilson's aides had in 1969 come to a similar conclusion, telling him that removing Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom would cause violence, and a military intervention by the Republic, that would not allow removing British troops. Loyalist leader Glen Barr said