Analysis: The First Minister's opponents may try to ambush him at the meeting of the 900-member Ulster Unionist Council, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
David Trimble has a real problem at the Ulster Unionist Council tomorrow. That was apparent in recent days but underlined by the First Minister's decision yesterday evening to write to Jeffrey Donaldson seeking a middle way at the council gathering.
Party Assembly members are worried about their seats; some fear they won't get past their selection conventions to be even allowed contest the Assembly elections if they stay with Mr Trimble; and on the ground many unionists feel Sinn Féin and the IRA are riding roughshod over the letter and spirit of the Good Friday deal. Some of this is a triumph of blind panic over sound judgment, particularly as Mr Trimble has very few high-calibre potential successors within the ranks of Ulster Unionism.
Another concern is that even if he defeats the No wing of the party by the usual 55 per cent/45 per cent margin the so called venerable Ulster men in grey suits may decide this is the time to invite Mr Trimble to fall on his sword.
But whether real or imagined there is genuine visceral concern out there, and that is why tomorrow's meeting of the 900-member council is so dangerous for the First Minister. "And remember most unionists are driven by political emotionalism, not political pragmatism," one Ulster Unionist MLA - who is still dithering over whether to venture into the Trimble or Donaldson camps - told The Irish Times.
Mr Donaldson and his supporters will play to these fears tomorrow. A bottom line for them, says the Lagan Valley MP and MLA in waiting, is that Sinn Féin Ministers Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brún must be forced out of the Executive.
He and other anti-Belfast Agreement Ulster Unionists believe they have a very good chance of ambushing Mr Trimble in the Ramada Hotel in south Belfast around high noon tomorrow. The fact that Mr Trimble is now prepared to parley with Mr Donaldson indicates that he, too, believes there is danger of a bushwhacking.
The sceptics have been operating to a sharp agenda this time. They are keeping their powder dry right until the last minute. They want to spring a motion on Mr Trimble that he would have difficulty resisting. Mr Donaldson talks of uniting the party around a single motion. But he and his anti-agreement colleagues want to be seen as dictating policy. If they succeed in that goal, how could Mr Trimble survive when he would be marching to Mr Donaldson's drum?
Mr Donaldson's confederates have been working quietly but effectively in recent weeks. Former Ulster Unionist leader and Mr Donaldson's mentor Lord Molyneaux this week tried to both unnerve David Trimble and set a confrontational tone for tomorrow's showdown.
On Wednesday he issued a statement, the last line of which was highlighted in dark lettering. It declared, "Surely the time has come to have done with lesser things - and lesser men."
Amid such uncertainty, have some sympathy for one of a number of irresolute Ulster Unionist MLAs considering which way to jump at tomorrow's council gathering: David or Jeffrey? Support Mr Trimble and a demoralised Ulster Unionist electorate may then punish him by switching to the DUP, ending his Assembly career.
Equally, if he allows Mr Donaldson adjudicate on party direction then that surely is the end of Mr Trimble. But, as the British government darkly hints, it could also mark the termination of the Assembly and Executive and the return of a greener form of direct rule that would suit Sinn Féin's agenda more than unionists. Thus the end of his Assembly career. Good old Catch-22.
Mr Donaldson, who has written to council members setting out why Sinn Féin must be forced from government, understands full well that the British and Irish governments and the SDLP firmly oppose any strategy that would disenfranchise Sinn Féin voters and, more pertinently, anger P. O'Neill.
But failure to punish Sinn Féin would lead to a "political meltdown", Mr Donaldson insists. And, he adds rather disingenuously, absolutely no responsibility whatsoever would rest with him or the No camp for such a potentially catastrophic unfolding.
He is dismissive of the line that in light of the two acts of IRA decommissioning, the ceasefire, and Gerry Adams shaping up to bring Sinn Féin on to the Policing Board (surely, the real sign that the war is over), that Mr Trimble's steady-as-she-goes policy has proved the correct one. Colombia, Castlereagh and IRA violence on the streets put paid to that argument, he says.
As for most violence here emanating from loyalist paramilitaries, Mr Donaldson accepts that reality but is again dismissive: "Johnny Adair is not Minister of Education." Mr Donaldson will unveil the sceptics' motion tomorrow. His main line, as expressed in the letter to delegates, is that his strategy is the only way to protect the party from electoral carnage come the Assembly elections - if they come at all, considering the potential impending crisis.
And that probably was the most powerful of Mr Donaldson's arguments: his appeal to those seeking electoral survival, a very primitive urge.
Mr Trimble, by seeking a rapprochement with Mr Donaldson, is being forced to shift on to some of the No ground. How far he travels on to that turf is the key issue. But can there be a meeting of minds, when hitherto Mr Trimble's people were acknowledging that as far as the British and Irish governments were concerned there could be devolution with Sinn Féin but not without?
"Keep cool," was Mr Trimble's advice in his letter to delegates.
David Trimble and Jeffrey Donaldson have the nervous but primed bearing of combatants who know the Yes and No wings are equally armed this time, and that the victor tomorrow - if there can be one - will be down to who provides the best generalship.