Mr David Trimble vowed today to rebuild his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) following damaging defections to the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Mr Trimble vented his anger at former colleagues who he accused of plotting resignations which have left the embattled party trailing behind their hardline rivals.
As he accepted the Ulster Unionist Party was now effectively in opposition going into next week's review of the Belfast Agreement, Mr Trimble insisted the walk-outs would allow him to carry out internal reforms.
He said: "There is still a little bit of dust to settle, but that dust will settle over the course of the next month or so.
"Then we have a huge opportunity for the party to put the divisions of the past behind and to put the problems of mixed message behind and for it to present itself clearly to the public and to look at its own structures and its own organisation."
He went on the offensive in a bid to end the turmoil which has engulfed the Ulster Unionists ever since the DUP eclipsed them at last November's elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Mr Paisley's triumph at the Stormont polls was compounded by the decision of UUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson's decision to switch allegiances and take two Assembly members with him into the Democratic Unionists.
The defections brought the DUP's strength at the suspended Stormont parliament to 33, nine more than Mr Trimble's party.
The apparent crisis within the UUP intensified when a party branch in Co Down dissolved last week after 26 members resigned. The Ulster Unionists' youth wing has also been shut down.
PA