O'Shannon writes of the attempted agreement "They [Trade Union Congress] denied that if the whole conference were unanimous on a basis of agreement which would include our central claim, and if the five of them threw their weight into support of this basis, the National Executive and their Congress would accept it. We doubted their denial but saw clearly that the spokesmen of the British Unions would not put their names to any document containing agreement on Irish control of all the Unions here.".