Sinn Fein's failure to deliver on IRA decommissioning has led to the current problems in the implementation of the Belfast Agreement and has shown the party to be a "nasty, hate-driven sectarian organisation", according to the chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party, Lord Rogan.
Speaking at yesterday's party conference in Co Fermanagh, Lord Rogan told delegates that his party was not engaging in delaying tactics with regard to the accord, and stressed the onus was now on the SDLP to make the Bel fast Agreement work by forming an executive without Sinn Fein.
"From Sinn Fein's failure to direct decommissioning, we can draw one simple conclusion - from top to bottom Sinn Fein is still a nasty, hate-driven sectarian organisation. It is doubtful now whether they will ever change. We have thought this for a long time, now the outside world is seeing the reality," said Lord Rogan, who is firmly on the pro-agreement wing of the party.
The SDLP should now enter a power-sharing executive with the UUP, he added. "If they really want to help create a peaceful society, the offer is there. It is time for the SDLP to recognise that the prejudice that lies behind pan-nationalism can only undermine democratic development in the long term."
Lord Rogan appealed for UUP unity and said the cause of unionism was strengthened by the Belfast Agreement. The document did not weaken the Union but rather represented the South "moving closer" to Britain. He denounced party representatives who had criticised UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, as political opportunists.
"I have no quarrel with those who voted `No' in the referendum. My difficulty is with those who have tried to frustrate what David Trimble and his team have been trying to achieve.
"My difficulty is with those who would sacrifice peace, progress and prosperity for all the people of Northern Ireland for narrow personal ambition."
He also formally launched a period of consultation with party members over proposals to re structure the party, which include the severance of the link with the Orange Order and the integration of constituency branches more fir mly into the configuration of the party.
"We have been a loose federation of associations, a political movement for longer than such a structure had been valuable to our cause. We must now become a political party - a cohesive single unit in which the individual member is the basic building block."