The struggle within Ulster Unionism is a bout to the bitter end, writesGerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
The banner headline on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph yesterday was "Unionists Split". "You call that news?" said a weary observer. "When was it not split in the last 30 years?"
This is not about "civil war" in the Ulster Unionist Party, said Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, who was chiefly responsible for that headline. It was about principle, he added yesterday morning after announcing that he, the Rev Martin Smyth and Mr David Burnside would remain half in, half out of the UUP by resigning the Westminster whip but staying in the party.
Mr Donaldson's comment that he was acting against his own self-interest in not resigning from the party, as he had indicated he would do, drew a derisive response from Trimble loyalists.
"If he had any honour at all he would simply make the jump and take his stand," said former UUP Assembly member Mr Alan McFarland on BBC's Talkback programme, where Mr Donaldson fielded questions from listeners. Reflecting the general state of the UUP, half the callers supported Mr Trimble, half Mr Donaldson.
It certainly looks and sounds like civil war.
One senior Ulster Unionist who is pro-David Trimble in a rather lukewarm fashion but who would happily accept an alternative leader if he or she could unite the UUP succinctly summed up the state of the party yesterday. "It's close your eyes and hold on tight time," he said.
He was speaking following a meeting of the UUP Assembly grouping at Stormont yesterday, and his tone was one of abject fatalism. "Who in their right mind would vote for the Ulster Unionist Party?" he wondered. "If we don't sort this out in the next four or five weeks the party is heading for destruction." This former MLA did not foresee the so-called grandees arriving imminently to invite Mr Trimble to "do the decent thing".
That presupposed an alternative leader that could bring the two diametrically opposed strands of unionism together. "Who is there out there to take over?" Jeffrey Donaldson as leader and Sir Reg Empey as First Minister has been mooted as a possible dual leadership but this MLA felt that such were the entrenched divisions in the Ulster Unionist Council that council members would not endorse such a partnership.
"I think Jeffrey and David are so wedded to destroying each other that I don't think there is any third way," he added. "There is no way that David Trimble or Jeffrey Donaldson is going to lead us anywhere. There are many more like him in the UUP, despairing, exhausted by the constant infighting. How can such hopelessness be metamorphosed into something positive? Mr Trimble's recipe for rallying the troops was the usual one, to come out fighting once again.
At least by getting into the ring again he should keep the men in grey suits at bay for a while. Having repeatedly withstood challenges from the Donaldson wing of Ulster Unionism, and having done so again last Monday night week, it must be gruelling to have to re-engage in this battle of attrition once more. But Mr Trimble does not want to be bettered by Mr Donaldson. For the moment, that's motivation enough.
Whatever about the charge, also made by Mr Trimble, that the three dissident MPs acted in an unprincipled manner by resigning the parliamentary whip, rather than resigning from the party, it does seem that Mr Donaldson, Mr Burnside and Mr Smyth are boxing clever.
It must be embarrassing for Mr Trimble to be leading a party of only three MPs, including himself, especially with the five-member DUP Westminster group now the biggest unionist bloc there. The dissident MPs may reckon that this undermining of the Trimble wing of the party may prompt Ulster Unionists generally to switch to their side.
There was one curious moment at the press conference yesterday. Mr Smyth, when asked by reporters, suggested that Mr Trimble should resign. That was implicit in Mr Donaldson's response to the same question, but he couldn't bring himself to spell it out. This prompted Mr Burnside rather impatiently to take over the podium and assert that if Mr Trimble did not shift policy, he should go. Even within this triumvirate there could be interesting clashes of ambition ahead.
There are a couple of rounds left in this contest but one thing for sure, it is a bout to the bitter end.