Unionist moves to oust Sinn Fein from the Northern Ireland Assembly seem doomed to failure after the SDLP told the British Labour Party conference that it would not back the proposals.
UUP leader Mr David Trimble today said he believes the Northern Ireland Assembly will have ceased to be effective by the middle of next week, if Sinn Fein was not remmoved.
Speaking this afternoon during a short break between meetings with political leaders in the Dail, Mr Trimble said unionists had reach "a defining moment".
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"If the motion does not achieve cross-community support," Mr Trimble said, "it will create a situation where unionists cannot continue to share power. In such a case we would be forced to withdraw from the Assembly," he said.
Earlier today, Mr Trimble garnered the requisite 30 signatures to bring about a debate on the UUP motion to exclude Sinn Fein when the PUP gave it their backing.
"It was a very painful decision because we are a non-exclusionist party," leader PUP Mr David Ervine, said, adding that his party colleague Mr Billy Hutchinson was "gutted" by the move.
A motion tabled by the Democratic Unionist Party also achieved the required backing last night when dissident UUP MLA Ms Pauline Armitage signed it.
But the North’s Agriculture Minister Ms Brid Rodgers told Labour delegates this evening that the rival motions were more about internal competition than achieving decommissioning.
She said: "The move to exclude Sinn Fein is wrong and runs totally contrary to the Good Friday Agreement. The SDLP will resist it."
Mrs Rodgers also warned the Friends of Ireland fringe meeting in Brighton that the peace process was facing its most serious crisis. "It is truly make or break time," she said.
Putting weapons beyond use remains a confidence building issue for unionists, the Upper Bann MLA said.
But Mrs Rodgers claimed by failing to decommissioning, the IRA is playing into the hands of those bidding to wreck the peace process.
Sinn Féin assembly member Mr Gerry Kelly said earlier that the UUP motion was the culmination of Mr Trimble's threat to cause a crisis in the political institutions.
"I look upon this as a self-destruct scenario. It's more than cutting off your nose to spite your face. What they are doing is pulling everything down."
Mr Kelly described PUP support for a motion of exclusion as "ludicrous" at a time when loyalists were continuing to attack nationalist's homes.
In reference to previous DUP motions seeking Sinn Fein exclusion from the Assembly, Mr Trimble said the UUP’s position was considerably different.
He said that following the defeat of DUP motions in the past, the party led by Mr Ian Paisley had failed to follow their actions to their logical conclusions and withdraw from the Assembly. "That is not the case with UUP," he said.
"The IRA must now act quickly on decommissioning and not just talk about it" he said. "They must stop talking about it with Mr de Chastelain and take him out to a site where weapons will be decommissioned."
Mr Trimble added that Unionists were more than happy to work with nationalists in the Assembly. He said there had been a good deal of positive progress on other issues covered by the Agreement, particularly cross-border co-operation.
Additional reporting PA