Mr David Trimble will almost certainly be forced back from holiday next month to face another challenge to his leadership at a special meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council.
That was the strong indication last night after a minority of the UUP officer team voted to renew disciplinary action against MPs - the Rev Martin Smyth, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson and Mr David Burnside - following their decision to resign the party whip.
And the sense of a mounting leadership crisis in the UUP will be stoked today with a Twelfth of July speech by Mr Donaldson to Orangemen at Hillsborough, in which he is expected to appeal directly to "middle ground" Ulster Unionists with an implicit suggestion that he can reunite the party.
The officers yesterday instructed the party's chief executive to compile a list of suitable persons to serve on a new disciplinary committee. This will be considered at a further meeting of the officer team on July 22nd. The need for a new committee arose following last Monday's High Court ruling that the suspension of the three MPs pending a disciplinary hearing was invalid.
At yesterday's meeting, it is understood Sir Reg Empey, usually a Trimble loyalist, proposed an amendment to the motion proposed by the party chairman, Mr James Cooper, which would have deferred the composition of a new disciplinary committee and allowed for a longer period to attempt a reconciliation between the two sides.
However, Mr Donaldson joined forces with Mr Trimble's supporters to reject the Empey amendment, which the meeting heard had the support of the party's absent MEP, Mr Jim Nicholson. During angry exchanges, Mr Donaldson is said to have dismissed the prospect of any conciliation process within the party while the proposal to take disciplinary action remained in place.
Mr Trimble's supporters were keen to stress that Sir Reg - who is being promoted by some pro-agreement unionists to head a "dream ticket" leadership succession with Mr Donaldson - did not vote against the principle of taking disciplinary action against the three MPs. However, it was being seen as significant in other circles last night that Sir Reg abstained on the main motion proposed by Mr Cooper on Mr Trimble's behalf.
The officers expressed the hope that there was an opportunity before their next meeting "to be proactive in trying to resolve the differences between the two factions". Privately, however, the Trimble camp sees no possibility of this unless the three MPs decided to reapply to take the party whip and withdraw statements made in the aftermath of last month's meeting of the UUC.
Last night the prospect seemed for a summer-long continuation of the party's internal war, as supporters of the dissident MPs told The Irish Times they would "almost certainly" convene another meeting of the council to challenge yesterday's decision to take fresh disciplinary action.