Trimble under more pressure to ditch accord
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Although Mr Trimble and his associates continued to hold the pro-agreement line, he is now in the uncomfortable position of having seven of his party's ten MPs pressing for the ditching of the accord. He appears, however, to retain control of the party executive.
With other evidence of a significant swing of Protestant opinion away from the agreement, the Trimble leadership is looking increasingly beleaguered. This seems to give him little room for manoeuvre in the review of the agreement, which is being conducted by the former United States senator George Mitchell.
Mr Mitchell resumed work on this yesterday after the turbulence generated last week by the Patten report on policing. The Patten recommendation for a change of name from Royal Ulster Constabulary to Northern Ireland Police Service in particular angered Unionists.
Mr Trimble's internal party problems have been complicated by the report. While he denounced it as shoddy and gratuitously, he is himself facing the charge that in signing up for the Good Friday Agreement he set in train the process which led to the report. The party executive, which met yesterday, concentrated its fire on the report, denouncing it as deeply flawed and unacceptable.
The bluntest criticism of Mr Trimble came yesterday from William Thompson, MP for West Tyrone, who, while describing Mr Trimble as his friend, declared: "He has betrayed the people who gave their lives against terrorism when he sat down with the representatives of terrorists. The UUP must return to its traditional roots. David Trimble must resign. This policy was very much his baby. He instigated it and it has failed. He agreed to the Patten Commission and allowed it to set about the destruction of the RUC."
Other Unionist MPs have called for the abandonment of the agreement but stopped short of calling for Mr Trimble's resignation.
Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, also weighed into the dispute, saying that Mr Trimble had caused his own problems by a hesitant performance.
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