The Ulster Unionists said tonight that they would not be supporting the deal to devolve policing powers to Northern Ireland at a crucial Assembly vote next week.
Party leader Sir Reg Empey said the Hillsborough Agreement on the transfer of policing and justice powers and the parading issue was not acceptable in its current form.
While Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists have the electoral strength to push through the accord when it is put before the Assembly on Tuesday, the UUP’s decision will deprive them of the unanimous support they would like.
The party’s decision is potentially problematic for the Conservative Party, which has an electoral pact with the UUP in Northern Ireland. David Cameron is a supporter of the Hillsborough deal and he now faces the prospect of going to the polls aligned to a party which opposes it.
Mr Empey announced his party’s position after holding all-day talks with Assembly colleagues in Templepatrick, Co Antrim.
The East Belfast MLA said the Stormont Executive needed to demonstrate an ability to address other outstanding issues facing it - such as the uncertainty over education reforms - before it could be trusted with security powers.
“It remains our view that the current Executive must be capable of exercising its existing powers before such an important issue as policing and justice is devolved,” he said.
He and his colleagues have now sent a series of proposals to the other parties in the Assembly designed to tackle the matters of concern to his party.
Mr Empey said he would examine any responses to that document over the next 72 hours and did not totally rule out a change of position ahead of Tuesday. “Over the coming days we will continue to monitor progress on matters contained within our document,” he said.
“The Ulster Unionist Party remains committed to devolution and to providing strong, stable and effective government for all the people of Northern Ireland.
“Our party executive will meet on Monday to hear a report from the leader and take a final decision.”
Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said: “By voting to complete devolution they will be doing so much more than voting for the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Stormont, important as that is.
“They will be voting for the hopes and aspirations of future generations who do not want to relive the past.”
He said it would be unthinkable to falter at this stage.
“And it would be hard to forgive anyone who put all that has been so hard won at risk,” he added.
“No one is suggesting that what has come out of The Good Friday Agreement, St Andrews and now the Hillsborough Castle Agreement is incapable of improvement.
“The architecture is there to enable locally accountable representatives to address the issues that rightly concern the people: education and skills, investment and jobs, policing and community safety.
“But the structures must be developed not destroyed.”
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness addressed his party’s Ard Fheis tonight in Dublin and told the annual Sinn Fein conference that the Ulster Unionists and nationalist SDLP were undermining the power-sharing government.
The two smaller parties are junior partners in the cross-community coalition government, but Mr McGuinness said the groups were also effectively seeking to play the role of opposition parties.
The UUP and SDLP have claimed to have been sidelined by Sinn Fein and the DUP.
But Mr McGuinness said: “Unlike previous negotiations the Agreement reached at Hillsborough was not an act of patronage by the British or Irish Governments. It was brokered and agreed between political parties in the north. It is a good deal for every citizen on this island.
“It protects the progress of recent years, addresses outstanding issues from St Andrews including the transfer of policing, justice and parading powers from London to Ireland. It crucially maps out a future way of doing business on the basis of partnership and equality.
“But it also represents a challenge — not just to us or the DUP — but to those who have spent recent years backbiting or in the case of the former leader of the SDLP, soundbiting from the sidelines — those who for too long have tried to ride two horses.
“Let me say to the UUP it is impossible to sit round the power-sharing table by day and court rejectionist transfers by night. Or indeed, as the SDLP have tried to do, sit round the Executive table in Stormont Castle and then pretend to be in the opposition benches in the Assembly.”
PA