Four members of the Ulster Unionist Party were yesterday formally expelled from the party for their opposition to the Belfast Agreement.
A statement from UUP headquarters said the four were expelled because they had opposed official party candidates in the Assembly elections. Mr Boyd Douglas and Mr Denis Watson were both elected to the Assembly as independent unionist candidates. Mr Jack Beattie and Mr William Wright were also expelled.
Meanwhile the Assembly's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, has come under attack from Sinn Fein because of his comments at the British Labour Party conference on Wednesday calling for decommissioning.
The Sinn Fein Assembly member for Newry-Armagh, Mr Conor Murphy, said Mr Mallon's comments were clearly calculated to take the pressure off the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble.
"If Mr Trimble insists on acting as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party first, and First Minister second, then it is up to him to reconcile the contradictions in those two positions. But Seamus Mallon should not be trying to come to his rescue by jumping on the decommissioning bandwagon," Mr Murphy said.
His party colleague, Mr Gerry Kelly, has said that there is "a growing, deep concern among republicans at the continuing delay in setting up an executive" in the Assembly. Mr Kelly said Mr Trimble was "looking over his shoulder at the unionist rejectionists" who wanted to wreck the agreement.
The deputy leader of the Alliance Party, Mr Seamus Close, has urged the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to publicly call on the IRA to start decommissioning. He said Mr Adams was wrong when he said there was nothing he could do about decommissioning.
Mr Close added: "Mr Trimble is also wrong to use decommissioning as an impediment to the establishment of the executive." Calling on Mr Adams and Mr Trimble to meet together with the decommissioning body and to "demonstrate the necessary will to move forward", Mr Close said: "If each genuinely tries to recognise the other's difficulties rather than waiting to see who blinks first, then progress can be made."