UUP officer board to discuss call for ruling council meeting

The Ulster Unionist Party's officer board is due to meet in Belfast tonight to discuss the latest moves by the anti-agreement wing to call a meeting of the party's ruling council.

Supporters of Jeffrey Donaldson, David Burnside and Martin Smyth had collected the signatures required to call the meeting next month, but the officer board had asked its lawyers to consider whether the petition was legal.

The anti-agreement wing of the UUP is seeking the meeting in an effort to block the leadership's attempt to discipline Mr Donaldson, Mr Burnside and Mr Smyth for resigning the party whip at Westminster earlier this year.

Pro-agreement elements in the UUP have said that the petition for a ruling council meeting is not legally valid because no disciplinary action has yet been taken against the dissidents.

The three dissidents resigned the party whip in protest at the UUP's failure to reject the Irish-British declaration on implementing the Good Friday Agreement.

However, reports from London have claimed that the British Government is preparing to offer party leader David Trimble major concessions on what was contained in that joint document, including a watering down of Dublin's role on the proposed International Monitoring Commission.

This commission was proposed after unionists demanded a body to monitor paramilitary ceasefires, but it will also have the power to judge whether political parties are meeting their commitments under the agreement.

If such a concession were offered, Mr Trimble may attempt to undermine the latest challenge to his leadership by calling a meeting of the UUP ruling council himself.