The sense of crisis within the political process deepened yesterday with parties criticising the UUP for issuing its ultimatum for the IRA to disband or it will bring down the power-sharing executive in January.
Alliance, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and the Women's Coalition all blamed Mr David Trimble for worsening the situation.
The DUP has demanded fresh Assembly elections while Mr Peter Robinson said the UUC resolution adopted on Saturday was "not to save Ulster, it was not to save the union, it was simply to save the Ulster Unionist Party." The Northern Secretary is to convene fresh talks with the parties.
Downing Street has come in for sustained criticism by both the UUP and Sinn Féin while unionists want a tougher line taken against republicans in response to alleged breaches in the IRA cessation. Mr Martin McGuinness challenged Mr Tony Blair to stand firm in the face of what he termed rejectionist unionist demands and not to buckle before what Mr Gerry Adams has called their "wreckers' charter".
Mr Trimble yesterday said IRA members could join Sinn Féin and devote themselves totally to politics and insisted: "This process cannot be sustained as things stand at the moment." The Deputy First Minister accused Mr Trimble of "wearing a sandwich board for Jeffrey Donaldson and the anti-agreement position" and questioned his pro-agreement credentials.
"Clearly Saturday's position undertaken by the UUP creates a bigger gulf and bigger gap between my position as a pro-agreement Deputy First Minister and Mr Trimble's position as a First Minister who is at best pro-agreement Lite," he said.
The SDLP would do nothing to compound the damage done to the new constitutional set-up at Stormont, he added.
The Alliance leader criticised Mr Trimble for setting demands he knew wouldn't be met. "Any compromise with anti-agreement unionism is a bad compromise. By threatening to bring down the Assembly, David Trimble is leading us into yet another manufactured crisis ahead of an election," he said.
"By allowing those who perpetuate instability to set the agenda, Mr Trimble is saying he is willing to destroy everything that has been built up in the past five years. He has already said he believes his unilateral demands will not be met." Sinn Féin echoed these arguments. Mr McGuinness accused unionists of setting out "to destroy the agreement and the agenda of change".
"David Trimble is no more than a front for the rejectionists who now control the party," he said.
Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, the Sinn Féin chairman, pointed out that MLAs yesterday began a debate on the draft Programme for Government, asking: "How do we square the strategic objectives of the executive - of equality, partnership, sustainability and prosperity - with the objectives of unionists on the executive, that are based on collapsing the institutions and the politics of exclusion?" For the Women's Coalition, Ms Monica McWilliams asked: "Talk of re-negotiating the agreement is arrant nonsense. In what fantasy world would Sinn Féin and the SDLP agree to a new document that incorporated the wish list of Peter Robinson which Jeffrey Donaldson has adopted?" Downing Street stuck to its line that work would continue to find a way forward. "Our view is that while the agreement is not perfect and we may not have a perfect peace, it does offer the best way forward in terms of devolved government and a more secure future for the people of Northern Ireland," Mr Blair's official spokesman said.