The ground was prepared last night for another attempted Ulster Unionist leadership heave after Mr Jeffrey Donaldson rejected an appeal from Mr David Trimble not to press ahead with an Ulster Unionist Council meeting in June.
The UUC meeting was initially called over fears that the Northern Ireland-based home element of the Royal Irish Regiment is to be disbanded but now Mr Donaldson plans to place a motion before the council demanding the complete rejection of the Hillsborough Joint Declaration.
The most likely date for the council gathering is June 14th, according to party sources. Mr Trimble called on Mr Donaldson to abandon his plans for the UUC and instead called an emergency meeting of the party's 110-member executive to discuss the Royal Irish Regiment issue next Friday.
Mr Trimble said he had received assurances from the British government that the three home-based Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) battalions numbering 3,000 soldiers would not be disbanded, and that the Joint Declaration's proposal to cut numbers to 5,000 referred solely to the regular British army.
Mr Trimble said he would "not lift a finger" to push forward with the peace process or the Joint Declaration without guarantees about the RIR's future. Any threat to the RIR would have grave consequences for the political process, he warned.
While Mr Trimble and Mr Donaldson are similarly minded on the RIR, the Lagan Valley MP nonetheless seized this opportunity to put further pressure on his leader. He told The Irish Times last night he would not abandon his plans to call a meeting of the 860-member UUC, the ruling body of the UUP.
"If David Trimble thinks the announcement about the Royal Irish Regiment is of the most serious consequences, and is not good for unionism, then I think it should be a matter for the Ulster Unionist Council," he said.
The British government insisted yesterday that there was "no decision to disband the Royal Irish Regiment for the foreseeable future". The British government and British army chiefs also stressed that major troop reductions were contingent on the IRA finally ending all paramilitary activity.
Such assurances had little effect on Mr Donaldson or his anti-Belfast Agreement supporters. As well as focusing on the RIR Mr Donaldson will urge the UUC to flatly reject the proposals in the Joint Declaration.
Mr Trimble had been pursuing a more cautious approach to the declaration. He appeared willing to postpone adopting a definitive position on the Joint Declaration to test whether the IRA would demonstrate that it was ending all activity. Were such a response forthcoming from the IRA then the declaration could be more palatable for a majority of unionists.
The UUP leader, however, realises that in the absence of IRA movement, Mr Donaldson has a major opportunity to damage him. Mr Donaldson said he did not care if people portrayed his initiative as an attempt to unseat Mr Trimble as leader.
"People can characterise this in whatever way they like. This is about rejecting the Joint Declaration. I have always been open about what I am doing," he said.
The next couple of weeks will be about the pro- and anti-agreement wings of unionism mustering their forces and their arguments for the UUC meeting. The outcome of that meeting could have dramatic consequences for the Belfast Agreement.