Declaring independence was the most traumatic decision I had to live up to. Because I didn't want to do it.

However ZANU and ZAPU did not participate because they opposed the internal settlement. Regarding his decision to start farming Smith remarked "[c]ommerce and economics are associated with mathematics. According to Smith the trespassers were shocked to learn the police were coming to his aid and in his own words "beat it" before law enforcement even arrived.

This still did not lead to international recognition for the country however and it was only in 1980 after the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement the British-supervised election of Robert Mugabe as prime minister in April 1980 and the adoption of the name Zimbabwe that international acceptance came. Frustrated by repeated failures to achieve this goal by negotiation with the British who insisted on an immediate handover to the African nationalists Smith's government unilaterally declared Rhodesia's independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. He served as the UFP's Chief Whip in the Federal Assembly from 1958 to 1962 before resigning to help form the pro-independence Rhodesia Reform Party which shortly merged with the Dominion Party to form the Rhodesian Front (RF).