The dissident Ulster Unionist MP, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, yesterday handed Mr David Trimble a highly conditional offer to help rebuild party unity after Friday's referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Donaldson said that if there was a Yes vote on Friday he and his colleagues would want to play "a constructive role" in framing a policy for next month's assembly elections around which the party might unite.
But the Lagan Valley MP made it clear that the policy he seeks would require "actual and continuous decommissioning" of IRA weapons before Sinn Fein could be admitted to membership of the Northern Ireland executive in either its transitional or substantive form.
At his press conference yesterday, Mr Donaldson echoed Mr Robert McCartney and other No campaigners in asserting that the decommissioning requirements of the agreement represented a "fudge" and did not require Sinn Fein "to deliver actual decommissioning".
Looking beyond Friday, Mr Donaldson said the question was "Where now for the Ulster Unionist Party?" While he and his colleagues would in conscience vote No, they accepted that Mr Trimble and many of their party colleagues would in equal conscience vote Yes. His own position was not motivated by personal ambition, he insisted. At his press conference, Mr Trimble said the difference between himself and Mr Donaldson centred on the small but important point about "the effectiveness of the mechanism that would be used to exclude unreconstructed terrorists".
Pressed on the decommissioning issue, Mr Trimble insisted: "The issue has been dealt with. There's no point in worrying around the edges. It's been dealt with in a way which I am sure we can work."
The Alliance Party leader, Lord Alderdice, attacked what he called Mr Donaldson's "extraordinary" comments. In a statement he said: "Jeffrey Donaldson knows perfectly well that the only prospect of decommissioning taking place is in the context of a clear Yes vote in Friday's referendum and the establishment of the structures set out in the agreement.
"If there is a No vote, then there is no possibility that decommissioning will take place."