UUP members struggle to agree motion

A UUP spokesman has said party members are trying to agree on a composite motion at today's UUP Council meeting.

David Trimble is understood to have opposed Jeffrey Donaldson's call for ministers to pull out of the power-sharing Executive if Tony Blair refused or failed to respond to calls for an exclusion mechanism to enable Sinn Féin to be expelled.

Sources said that Mr Trimble also refused to accept the proposal to pull out immediately from the North-South ministerial council.

“Trimble called it a waste of time and said we’ve done that before,” the source added