At the time that the NP came to power in 1948, there were factional differences in the party about the implementation of systemic racial segregation. The larger
baasskap faction, favoured segregation, but also favoured the participation of black Africans in the economy as long as black labour could be controlled to advance the economic gains of Afrikaners.
A second faction were the "purists", who believed in "vertical segregation", in which blacks and whites would be entirely separated, with blacks living in native reserves, with separate political and economic structures, which, they believed, would entail severe short-term pain, but would also lead to independence of white South Africa from black labour in the long-term. Verwoerd belonged to a third faction, that sympathised with the purists, but allowed for the use of black labour, while implementing the purist goal of vertical separation.
[21]
Verwoerd's vision of a South Africa divided into multiple ethno-states appealed to the reform-minded Afrikaner intelligensia, and it provided a more coherent philosophical and moral framework for the National Party's racist policies, while also providing a veneer of intellectual respectability to the previously crude policy of
baasskap.
[22][23][24] Verwoerd felt that the political situation, that had evolved over the previous century under British rule in South Africa, called for reform.
[25]
