Northern politics could be dramatically reconfigured within days, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
A truly historic week lies in prospect for the politics of Northern Ireland. Mr Jeffrey Donaldson has chosen to make this a "defining moment" for unionism. At tonight's meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, he hopes to deliver the fatal blow to Mr David Trimble's leadership. If he loses the vote, Mr Donaldson has given the clearest signal that he is prepared to quit the party and take his supporters with him. Thus the political landscape in Northern Ireland could be dramatically reconfigured within days.
Either way, the assumption in the Donaldson camp is that Mr Trimble will emerge the loser. If the party backs the Donaldson motion - rejecting the British-Irish Joint Declaration as a basis for restoring the Stormont Assembly - it will be cast as an irretrievable loss of authority by the Trimble leadership. In that event, Mr Trimble would be expected to "consider his position," just as Mr Donaldson has promised to do if the vote goes the other way.
If Mr Trimble wins, and Mr Donaldson does go, the suggestion is of a formal split on a scale not witnessed since 1974, when the Ulster Unionist Party sundered over the Sunningdale Agreement.
On the assumption that Mr Donaldson does not intend to find himself absorbed within Dr Paisley's DUP, speculation inevitably follows that he thinks to form an alternative political party or movement which would then fight any Assembly election in coalition with the DUP and other groupings on a pledge to renegotiate the Belfast Agreement.
The Irish Times first reported the possibility of a realignment of unionist forces to be led by Mr Donaldson and the deputy leader of the DUP, Mr Peter Robinson, in the immediate aftermath of the first Assembly election in 1998. And, as this newspaper reported on Saturday, it is a prospect which tantalises at least some senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The British government's increasingly firm view is that they are mistaken in their assessment of the capacity or intention of such a putative alternative leadership to deliver any political accommodation with nationalists and republicans save, possibly, after a protracted period of direct rule with an inevitably "greener" tinge.
Against that, it seemed certain the DUP, in effective coalition with the Donaldson wing of the UUP, would have commanded a unionist majority had the Assembly elections gone ahead in May. Some key figures within Sinn Féin certainly anticipate dealing with a changed unionist leadership if the elections finally do take place in the autumn.
There is no evidence that the Taoiseach or his ministers have given up on Mr Trimble. But the realpolitik of their insistence that elections must take place is that the two governments will simply have to deal with whatever outcome the electorate delivers. Mr Blair, on the other hand, thinks this is no choice at all; that the point of elections must be to re-establish the devolved government; and that Mr Trimble remains the only unionist leader with a chance of delivering that - provided the issue of paramilitarism is finally and satisfactorily resolved.
But will Mr Blair be able to hold to this position if Mr Donaldson wins tonight's vote and the Irish Government and the other parties conclude Mr Trimble has lost control of his party's policy-making ?
Is it not more likely in such circumstances that the IRA would refuse the "acts of completion" demanded by both governments in the belief that Mr Trimble cannot reliably commit his party to resume power-sharing and that another negotiation - this time with Robinson and Donaldson - inevitably lies beyond an election?
Might not Mr Trimble anyway render such questions irrelevant by accepting defeat tonight and agreeing finally to fall on his sword?
Mr Donaldson should not bet on it. Mr Trimble is no quitter. Whatever the doubts voiced by republicans, he remains deeply wedded to the Belfast Agreement. He is contemptuous of the DUP's half-in-half-out membership of the former Executive. He sees Mr Donaldson facing both ways on the agreement - suggesting it has to be renegotiated, while presenting himself as representative of middle-ground unionists who want only to be convinced of republican good faith.
Moreover, Mr Donaldson has declined to make tonight's vote a direct judgment on Mr Trimble's leadership. While undoubtedly a serious reversal, with unknown longer-term implications, some of Mr Trimble's supporters think he could accommodate himself to a defeat; present it to Mr Gerry Adams as the most compelling evidence that the agreement will be lost unless the IRA delivers; and then sit tight.
In those circumstances, it would be for the party's fabled "men in grey suits" to tell Mr Trimble his time was up, or for Mr Donaldson to follow through with a motion of no confidence - and, wait for it, yet another defining moment for the Ulster Unionist Council.
Of course, Mr Trimble might win, in which case we are not yet back to 1974. The crucial point then was that the party leader, the late Brian Faulkner, lost the vote and was forced to walk away and form the rump UPNI, which was in turn swept away by the United Ulster Unionist Coalition (UUUC).
Anyone contemplating the recreation of the UUUC, therefore, should factor in one crucial point. If David Trimble wins tonight's vote, by even the narrowest margin, he gets to retain the title deeds of the Ulster Unionist Party, with its natural claim on the votes of large numbers of unionists.
This point would not be lost on such people as Lord Molyneaux and the Rev Martin Smyth - patron and president respectively of the UUC, and men with a deeply ingrained sense of party - as they considered any alternative political home proffered by Mr Donaldson.
If he loses tonight and quits, Mr Donaldson would certainly be boosted if he took these and other key figures with him. Were large numbers of constituency branches and local councillors to defect, and the Orange Order to throw its weight behind him, then Mr Donaldson could quickly assemble the nucleus of a credible alternative political machine. And it is certainly conceivable that a new unionist coalition could ultimately send Mr Trimble the way of Brian Faulkner.
However, unless he loses tonight's vote and decides to throw in the towel, Mr Trimble will remain in the fight, and Mr Donaldson will still have it to do.