Sinn Fein and the SDLP were acting unreasonably and illegally by refusing to fly the Union flag over government buildings, a senior Ulster Unionist claimed on Saturday.
A conference motion condemned the "arrogant disregard" shown to the flag by the SDLP and Sinn Fein and called on the British government to ensure all Assembly ministers flew it.
Mr Dermot Nesbitt, a junior Minister in the Stormont executive, said the debate on flags was "simply about what is correct and about what happens in the rest of the United Kingdom and more importantly about applying international standards that are applied in the rest of the democratic world." He argued that Sinn Fein and the SDLP were breaking human rights law by opposing the flying of the flag.
Mr Nesbitt said nationalists "deny us our acknowledged rights by not flying the Union flag on government buildings, or by seeking parity between the Union flag and the Tricolour".
Mr Trevor Wilson, a Cookstown councillor, criticised the party officers for not having the Union flag on-stage, until it was pointed out that a flag was directly behind him. He said that the refusal of the SDLP and Sinn Fein to fly the Union flag was "an attack on our Britishness".
Mr Wilson said Mr John Hume often quoted his father's advice that "you can't eat a flag".
"What a pity his father did not tell him, `Son, you will never get an agreement in Northern Ireland if you are not prepared to accept the identity of your opponents'," he said.
Mr Billy Armstrong, the treasurer of the party's Mid Ulster branch, said the problem of flags lay at the door of the British government. As a result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the British government had removed the legal protection given to the flag, he said.
All those who signed the Belfast Agreement had effectively acknowledged that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.
"Therefore we have the right to raise the Union flag in allegiance to our queen and country on the same days as the rest of our United Kingdom," he added.
Mr Simon Hamilton, chairman of the Queen's University of Belfast Ulster Unionist Association, said the flag issue was symptomatic of the "steady seeping away of vestiges of British identity". These things were important to unionists, he said, "because they remind us, and nationalists, that we reside in the United Kingdom."
The motion was passed unanimously by the conference.