DUP steps up anti-agreement campaign

The Democratic Unionist Party will take its campaign against the Good Friday Agreement on the road again, it emerged today.

As parties in Northern Ireland speculated about a new push to restore devolution in the North, a DUP spokesman confirmed the party was planning a series of public meetings highlighting flaws in the British and Irish governments’ peace process proposals.

The DUP spokesman said: “We are planning six meetings which will chart events since the Belfast Agreement.

“In particular, we will be focusing in on the many weaknesses in the joint declaration from Dublin and London and in the legislation for the new monitoring body.

“The meetings will take place right across Northern Ireland.”

It is understood the party will hold the first meeting of the series in Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble’s Upper Bann constituency.

The meeting is scheduled to take place in Portadown on Friday next week.

Other meetings will take place in Enniskillen, Coleraine, Lisburn, Newtownards and Carrickfergus.

The DUP’s campaign follows Mr Trimble’s victory over three rebel MPs at his party’s ruling council meeting on Saturday.

Ulster Unionists backed disciplinary action initiated by the leadership against Jeffrey Donaldson, the Rev Martin Smyth and David Burnside, who resigned the whip at Westminster in June after a row over the party’s handling of the two governments’ peace process proposals.

Since Saturday’s victory for Mr Trimble, there has been increased speculation about a new attempt by the British and Irish governments to persuade parties to restore the Assembly and power-sharing executive, which have been suspended since last October.

Northern Ireland’s parties are on standby for a possible Assembly election in November.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair cancelled an election in May after four days of campaigning, because he did not believe the political climate was right for restoring devolution.

Earlier this week, a Sinn Féin source said republicans would not move in the peace process without a fixed date for an autumn election.