"Everybody is a winner," announced a bullish David Trimble speaking after he had survived another Ulster Unionist Council meeting.
Only the most convinced Ulster unionist member would find it easy to believe Mr Trimble's claim however.
The Ulster Unionist leader had secured party unity, and with it his leadership, but at a price. The compromise motion adopted by the 850-odd members of the council commits the party to withdraw immediately from all meetings of the north south ministerial council where Sinn Féin is involved.
Even more ominously, the party will now begin "discussions" with the governments and the other parties who signed the Belfast Agreement.
According to the wording of the motion this involves ensuring that the agreement is still "viable" but Mr Trimble made clear what this meant at a press conference after the meeting. Seated beside his some time, one time, but not this time, nemesis Jeffrey Donaldson Mr Trimble said it meant the IRA would have to disband before the next meeting of the council on January 18.
He said republicans had had five years to live up to the reality of the agreement and had little sympathy if their delays meant they now faced an "untidy scramble" before his party deadline.
If they failed to do this then the Ulster unionist party would itself withdraw from powersharing, he said, predicting that this would in fact happen.
The Ulster unionist leader predicted republicans would engage in a game of brinkmanship with his party as they had done in the past and push it past the date it had set. In fact he predicted his party would in all likelihood be out of office come January 19th.
As they had found in the past, his party was willing to live up to its pledges he said., he said. Asked if he had any message for Sinn Fein leaders, he said "you need to reconstruct and reconstruct quickly.
A charitable interpretation of the day is that Mr Trimble has bought the process three months' breathing space. Had messrs Donaldson and Burnside had their way, he would have been asking the British Prime Minister For Sinn Fein's immediate exclusion from government next week.
When this failed, as it in all likelihood would have, the UUP would have withdrawn soon after from the Executive. This interpretation sees Mr Trimble as being vital to the pro agreement stance of his party and also views his adopting of a tough line as preserving that leadership.
There are, already, other interpretations.
One less charitable view sees Mr Trimble as having given in to the no wing of his party almost entirely now.
Whether Jeffrey Donaldson lacked the courage to force delegates to choose between Mr Trimble and himself or whether he has decided he does not want to be the leader who takes the party to humiliation in May's elections is a moot point, what is certain is that for fear of those elections the party has lurched the way he wanted it to.
Many believe that the UUP strategy in face of the anti-Agreement DUP would have to involve being out of office with Sinn Fein. For whatever reasons, it now seems as if this will be the case from January 18.
Perhaps in this way Mr Trimble believes everyone in the UUP will be a winner.