Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, warned yesterday that nationalists considered the Patten proposals on policing "a fundamental part" of the Belfast Agreement.
Referring to David Trimble's assertion that the Patten reforms could lead to the "corruption" of the police force in Northern Ireland, Mr Mallon said on RTE's This Week the Patten proposals were "as fundamental a part of the Good Friday agreement as the political arrangements or the North-South arrangements or any of the other factors".
He said he doubted there would be a serious challenge to Mr Trimble's leadership of the UUP. "There are those who want to depose him, but they do not want to take on the poisoned chalice of leading the Ulster Unionist Party at the moment." He said one of the reasons the UUP had lost the South Antrim by-election was that the party's candidate, Mr David Burnside, had "little or no rapport with the people in that constituency".
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair told BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme yesterday he believed the majority of the people of Northern Ireland still supported the agreement. "The vast bulk of the people in Northern Ireland and in particular all the mainstream political parties are supporting it and working for it, to deliver the future in Northern Ireland we want to see.
"People want to see the process really working . . . if you compare Northern Ireland where it is today with five or 10 years ago the progress is enormous."