Trimble leadership of UUP in doubt, says Paisley

David Trimble's leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party was now in question, the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, told his party's annual conference at the weekend.

More than 400 delegates cheered, clapped and gave repeated standing ovations to their leader during a vintage Paisley speech in which he said that "every vote cast today in the Waterfront Hall for Mr Trimble is a vote of shame. It is a vote of darkness, a vote that tramples on the graves of innocent victims and a vote that not only tramples on them but dances on their graves.

"Every hand raised for Trimble today and for his prophecy is a hand just as much the enemy of Ulster as a hand of the IRA," Dr Paisley said at La Mon House hotel in Gransha, near Belfast.

Making the most of a major political opportunity, the party will be hoping to persuade dissident UUP members to vote with the DUP and join its ranks. The party's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said Mr Trimble was effectively opposed by 80 per cent of unionists.

The party is today expected to nominate Mr Robinson, and the party's secretary, Mr Nigel Dodds, for the newly devolved executive at the Assembly meeting in Belfast. Dr Paisley said they would take their seats on the executive in keeping with their electoral mandate and to prevent Sinn Fein getting extra seats.

Speaking after his conference address, Dr Paisley said Mr Trimble knew he was on "very weak terrain indeed" with the compromise "postponement clause" to reconvene the Ulster Unionist Council meeting in February. He was on weak terrain because he refused to take questions from the media and because he had to give the chairman of the party an envelope containing his post-dated resignation.

He had to put it forward because he knew his original proposal to go into government with no conditions would not be acceptable. Insisting that his party would never sit on the executive with Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brun, the DUP leader predicted that "Sinn Fein won't be disarming anyway".

It was a deception, he insisted. The council went into vote on whether they would go into government and then he got it "twisted around" so that they would come back in February. "They have let the fox into the hen coop. It's no use coming back 48 hours later, for there's no chickens left."

Mr Trimble was going into government for the "spoils of office". Asked if the DUP would be forgoing those gains, Dr Paisley said that "we are entitled to be in there, and we are entitled to the salary that goes with it and everything that goes with it". Objecting to the question as an attack on the DUP, Dr Paisley said he was a member of parliament and entitled to everything every other member was getting.

Why was nobody questioning the way attempts were being made to reinstate the SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, as deputy first minister? It was a major point in Dr Paisley's speech. The Northern Secretary would have to change the Assembly's standing orders. Otherwise Mr Mallon would have to be voted back into office and he would not get the vote.

They were trying "through the back door, indeed through the keyhole, to squeeze Mallon back into office. Not only should Mallon be out but under their own law Trimble should be out."

They were attempting to say he had not resigned. "Mr Mallon did resign. When he walked out of the Assembly his official car was taken from him. He lost his driver, he lost his car and he also lost his salary."

The DUP would not be "jumping with Trimble. We will not be jumping with Adams. We'll be jumping on them." Mr Trimble was trying to get Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness into the government of Northern Ireland and "telling the people of Northern Ireland that this is the way to save the Union". Mr Trimble was prepared to "besmirch and stain his soul, strip his party and destroy his country".