 Eventually, two Catholic MP's and half of the Liberal MP's joined the socialists in rejecting the Colonial Charter (forty-eight votes against) and nearly all the Catholics and the other half of the Liberal MP's approved the charter (ninety votes for and seven abstentions).This way, on 15 November 1908 the Belgian Congo became a colony of the Belgian Kingdom.This was after King Leopold II had given up any hope of excluding a vast region of the Congo from the government's control by attempting to maintain a substantial part of the Congo Free State as a separate crown property.