The SDLP and Sinn Fein were last night still refusing to give their support to the North's new police force despite an endorsement from Mr Chris Patten who drew up the original report on which the police Act is based.
Mr Patten endorsed the British government's legislation and urged both communities in the North to encourage their young people to join the new force.
Nationalist politicians are maintaining that the police Actfalls short of the proposals contained in Mr Patten's report which was published last year.
Sinn Fein has already indicated a refusal to nominate members to the Policing Board, to which the new force will be answerable, but the SDLP wants to see the British government's implementation plan for the Act before it decides its policy.
Writing in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph, Mr Patten said: "Political parties and other community leaders should now be working to get their representatives on to the Policing Board and the District Policing Partnerships.
"They should now start to encourage youth from all parts of the Northern Ireland community to apply to join the police." It was time for the North's parties to "look beyond old political arguments and towards building new policing arrangements for Northern Ireland which are second to none in the world".
Mr Patten welcomed the establishment of the Police Ombudsman's office, claiming that along with the Policing Board, it meant Northern Ireland would have the most rigorous system of independent civilian oversight in the world.
He also welcomed the appointment of the former chief of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Mr Tom Constantine, as the Oversight Commissioner, to ensure the new policing arrangements were implemented.
The SDLP policing spokesman, Mr Alex Attwood, noted Mr Patten's comments but said: "Good work has been done to recreate the Patten report in the Police Bill but more work needs to be done to convince the community there is a new beginning for policing."
The Sinn Fein spokesman on policing, Mr Alex Maskey, expressed "disappointment" at Mr Patten's comments. "At the launch of the Independent Commission's report last year, he categorically counselled against the `cherry-picking' of its recommendations which he stated need `to be implemented comprehensively'," he said.
The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble said: "The endorsement of the Police Act by Chris Patten and the prominent Northern nationalist on the Commission, Maurice Hayes, represents a challenge to nationalist politicians. I hope these politicians will follow the lead which has been given."
The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, welcoming Mr Patten's comments applied further pressure to the SDLP to nominate members to the Policing Board. The "politics of boycott" did not secure the Belfast Agreement and it wouldn't "bring us the new police service we want to create in Northern Ireland either", he said.