UNIONISTS reacted with fury last night to a warning by the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, that they could be excluded from the peace process if they opposed Sinn Fein's entry to talks.
Dr Mowlam said Mr Tony Blair's settlement train would "leave the station without the unionists" if they walked out of talks in protest.
The most hardline British government statement yet issued to unionists drew an angry response from the two main unionist parties. The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Rev Ian Paisley, said Dr Mowlam had "taken leave of her senses".
"Certainly we can have a deal in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein being involved, but we cannot have a deal without the majority of the population, the unionists," he said.
He claimed Dr Mowlam's comments, made in an interview on BBC's Newsnight, were "just the tip of the iceberg" and added: "There's more to come. There will be negotiations to get Sinn Fein into talks and the British government will give in and give in and give in."
A senior UUP source said: "If the Secretary of State carries on like this she could find out that there will be no one on the settlement train." However, the party's security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, played down the significance of Dr Mowlam's remarks, saying "she was caught off balance".
"She was talked into it," he said. "She did say she was not in the business of barring people and that she was in the business of moving things along. We are in the talks and Sinn Fein have not qualified and do not appear to be going to qualify and, taking it simply at that level, I am not going to hypothesise."
Carmel Robinson adds: Dr Mowlam had already fallen foul of unionist leaders yesterday by meeting nationalist residents groups in a whistlestop tour of parade trouble spots.
Residents and representatives from Dunloy, Co Antrim, the Garvaghy Road in Portadown and the lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, met the Northern Secretary to air their views on the marching season. Unionists were angry that a British cabinet minister should meet people such as Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition and Mr Gerald Rice of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community.
Dr Mowlam responded: "As with the previous government, we meet local councils which have Sinn Fein representatives. I have met residents groups in which some people are described in some political way or another. I met residents groups before the election a number of times and I will continue to meet them."