Former SDLP leader John Hume has accused Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams of insulting the electorate.
Mr Hume, whose series of talks with Mr Adams between 1988 and 1994 led to the IRA ceasefire, said: "Gerry Adams's claim that the SDLP has abandoned the Hume-Adams process is nonsense and an insult to the knowledge of the electorate.
"The reason I got involved in the talks with Adams was to secure lasting peace followed by a lasting agreement. "The people know that the SDLP has always been a party of lasting peace, unlike Sinn Féin, and always proposed the main items of the Good Friday agreement - power-sharing and a North-South Council of Ireland."
Mr Adams would not be drawn on Mr Hume's criticism.
A Sunday Times/YouGov online survey of 1,400 British voters published yesterday indicated that 42 per cent of those polled blame Sinn Féin and the IRA for the impasse in the peace process. In response to the question "Who do you blame mainly for the political stalemate in Northern Ireland?", 18 per cent said Ian Paisley and the DUP, 6 per cent said the British government, 2 per cent said the Irish Government and 1 per cent said David Trimble and the Ulster Unionists
Some 46 per cent agreed with the statement "There should be a united Ireland", with 30 per cent agreeing that "Northern Ireland is and should remain part of the UK".