Over the past three years Mr David Trimble, by trick and threat, has managed to persuade the bare majority of his party to engage in numerous political contortions to maintain the Belfast Agreement.
He was at it again yesterday. He pulled his three ministers from the Executive but by means of another ruse bought more than two weeks in which he hopes the IRA will do the necessary on arms - thus avoiding the collapse of devolution which he set in train.
Yesterday, the UUP ministers - Sir Reg Empey, Mr Michael McGimpsey and Mr Sam Foster - "withdrew" from the Executive. Probably next Monday, they will formally "resign" from the Executive.
And probably on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, after seven working days have elapsed (which is necessary under legislation), the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, will almost certainly order a review of the Belfast Agreement and indefinitely put in cold storage the institutions of the hard won accord.
A review and suspension could be unnecessary were the IRA in the meantime to make a substantive gesture on weapons. Looking for clues yesterday it was questionable whether the IRA would move within the terms of the 17-day timescale laid down by Mr Trimble, but it might move afterwards.
Inside and outside the Assembly yesterday, Sinn FΘin members complained that relative to the activities of the UDA and LVF, the IRA was close to dormant at the moment. So, why the main focus on the IRA rather than the loyalists? Sinn FΘin president, Mr Gerry Adams, complained that while unionist politicians may not be silent about the activities of the loyalist paramilitaries they were sometimes rather "mumbly".
This was all fair comment but the political reality was bluntly stated by acting SDLP Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon. "Without decommissioning the agreement will not survive," he declared.
And nobody was arguing with him particularly, not even Sinn FΘin members. Privately some of the republicans wandering around Stormont yesterday agreed that the IRA inexorably was following a route that would result in arms being put beyond use. They were coy about when that might happen, but if one interpreted Mr Adams properly it could be a case of sooner rather than later.
Indeed, there was a surprising unity of opinion from Mr Trimble and Mr Adams on the vexed question. It must also be propitious that the UUP and Sinn FΘin have opened up contact to find common ground on how political meltdown might be avoided.
Relations may be strained however by Mr Trimble's tendency towards dropping unfortunate verbal timebombs at sensitive moments, α la his previous comments about the necessity to "house-train" republicans. Mr Adams will hardly have been impressed by Mr Trimble's comment at a press conference yesterday evening that the exclusion motion was designed to demonstrate "to even the thickest republican" the need to move on arms.
"I do believe that the action that we have taken today is necessary," said Mr Trimble earlier in the Assembly where he was more careful and assured. "And I believe it will be fruitful at the end of the day. The only question is how long we will have to wait. That is a question I will have to leave with others."
Mr Adams - one of the "others" - was also confident that the arms deadlock finally could be broken, but there was a caveat. "I believe the issue of weapons can be resolved as quickly as possible. That is my very, very clear view," he said.
"But I have said many times it is not possible to resolve this on the terms laid down by the DUP or indeed by the UUP or the British Government or on the basis of threat or ultimatum."
There can be a few readings of that comment. One, that the IRA, left to deal with the decommissioning body, would actually start putting its arsenals beyond use - "as quickly as possible", to use the words of Mr Adams. Or two, that the IRA would move but not until the review was in place so that republicans could insist that they were not responding to the two-week deadline created by Mr Trimble's phased withdrawal from the Executive. A third reading, which would seem to contradict the words of Mr Adams, is that the IRA will do nothing substantive.
But as Mr Mallon pointed out there is a heavy price to be paid for such inaction. Republicans know the price. Yesterday they appeared to be signalling that they recognise that in the current post-Colombia, post- September 11th, climate that politics at last should be allowed have supremacy over paramilitarism.