and 25 to register for National Service. The left-wingers regarded this action as a government move "to counter the left-wing movement" However, within the left-wing camp, there were two different strategies to campaign against the National Service scheme supported by two schools led respectively by Chen Hock Wah, who was a member of the CPM and Lee Siew Choh, who was Chairman of Barisan. Chen Hock Wah proposed a two-step policy called "Principled Registration" or "Registration under Protest". The first step was not to stop persons affected being registered. The second step was to tell the persons affected not to present themselves for rollcall if they were actually mobilised for active service after registration. On the other hand, the camp led by Lee Siew Choh advocated a boycott of the law and proposed affected persons should not even register in the first place. A great quarrel broke out in Barisan and Chen's strategy obtained majority support. Finally, Lee Siew Choh, together with seven other founding members resigned from the party attributing his resignation to the difference between him and other leaders. The party was split wide open, though Lee was persuaded to resume his chairmanship of Barisan on 9 March 1965. Singapore's separation from Malaysia The Barisan had fought against the merger with Malaysia, however, upon the declaration of Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965, leaders of Barisan declined to recognise the independence of Singapore. Lee Siew Choh, chairman of Barisan attacked the independence obtained by Singapore, stating that it was not genuine and released public slogans of "Crush Malaysia", "Phony Independence", and "Boycott Parliament". Reaction towards Singapore's independence within the left-wing camp was again divided. Lim Huan Boon, who was a member of the Communist Party of Malaya and one of Barisan's representatives in the Legislative Assembly recognised the independence of Singapore stating that there was no such thing as phony or half independence. Lim Chin Siong, another leader of Barisan who was in detention, also considered Singapore's independence to be genuine. Taking the view that there was neither true national independence nor parliamentary democracy, Barisan began to boycott Parliament and elections. In October 1966, the Barisan had all its remaining representatives in Parliament resign their seats and started what they called an extra-parliamentary struggle. An editorial in The Straits Times commented that the Barisan chose the wrong time to launch an extra-parliamentary struggle: “To give up the constitutional