UUP chiefs plan next move over rebel MPs

Ulster Unionist Party officers were today preparing to appoint members of a disciplinary committee to hear the case of three rebel MPs.

Earlier this month, they voted to try again to take disciplinary action against UUP president the Rev Martin Smyth, Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside.

The three MPs resigned the whip at Westminster last month in protest at the party’s failure to completely reject proposals from the British and Irish Governments on the future of the Good Friday Agreement.

UUP sources today said they understood a shortlist of 18 names had been drafted of people eligible to serve on the disciplinary committee.

A previous attempt to suspend the MPs was overturned in the Belfast High Court because of the make-up of the disciplinary committee which heard the case and because it was improperly convened.

Ulster Unionist chief executive Alistair Patterson has been charged with the task of nominating party members who could serve on the committee.

However, as the party officer team prepared for today’s meeting, UUP honorary secretary Arlene Foster condemned the move.

“When there was a previous attempt to take disciplinary action against the three I said it was wrong and vindictive,” she said.

“That was borne out in the High Court ruling which proved very costly financially to our party.

“I still think that this move is wrong.”

The three MPs have been involved in a bitter dispute with supporters of UUP leader David Trimble in recent months over party policy.

Some party officers, however, have been trying to broker a truce between the feuding camps.

Sources, however, did not believe that a resolution could be found ahead of this afternoon’s meeting.