The Ulster Unionist Party is to refer the cases of three MPs who have quit the party whip to a disciplinary body which could expel them.
The move had been sought by Mr David Trimble, who made it clear that Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, the Rev Martin Smyth and Mr David Burnside had to support party policy, which had been endorsed by the ruling Ulster Unionist Council as recently as June 16th.
"We can't be expected to indefinitely put up with the situation where there is a party within a party," he said. The move has widened already gaping splits among the party at all levels.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will meet Mr Trimble in London next Wednesday immediately before Mr Ahern holds talks in Downing Street with Mr Blair on how to keep the political process alive into the autumn.
The meeting with the UUP leader follows the cancellation of a meeting due to take place between the two men last Monday. Mr Trimble pulled out of that meeting as a result of the crisis over the imminent resignation of the party whip by Mr Donaldson, Mr Burnside and the Rev Smyth.
A meeting of the UUP's 14-strong officer group met at party headquarters in east Belfast yesterday to discuss the refusal by the three to back party policy on the Joint Declaration which the two governments hope will restore the Stormont institutions and then lead to the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
The group voted by five votes to two to begin moves to discipline the trio of MPs. Some key members of the officers' group were missing. Mr Smyth has made it clear in advance he would not attend, even though he would normally chair such a meeting.
Also absent were Lord Maginnis, the former Fermanagh South Tyrone MP; Mr Jim Nicholson, the party's MEP; Mr Jack Allen, a noted Trimble loyalist; and Sir Reg Empey.
The start of disciplinary proceedings under UUP member and solicitor, Mr Raymond Ferguson, has already run into trouble, with Mr Donaldson claiming he is an unsuitable chairman.
He claimed Mr Ferguson had spoken vehemently against him and his supporters at the UUC on June 16th, but Mr Trimble stood by the selection.
This was soon followed by an announcement by Ms Arlene Foster to resign her officership of the UUP. She said she wanted to distance herself from what she called the "vindictive leadership" which she claimed was out of step with wider unionist opinion.
Ms Foster, along with Mr Jim Rodgers, voted against the disciplinary proceedings. Mr Donaldson did not vote as he was the subject of the move and he therefore withdrew from the meeting. Mr Smyth was absent and Mr Burnside is not a party officer and was not entitled to attend. Mr James Cooper, who chaired the meeting, did not vote. Speaking afterwards, Mr Trimble said it had been a bad week for unionism. "I think the actions taken by the three gentlemen on Monday [to resign the party whip] have triggered a crisis within the party and have left the party with no alternative but to respond in the way it has." He said the response was inevitable following what he called the three MPs' "onslaught on the party's policies and leadership". With proceedings against them now under way, Mr Trimble said they might reflect on their stance. But he again insisted: "People do have to decide whether they are going to be members of the party, whether they are going to follow through that membership by supporting their party." He said he had, since the signing of the Belfast Agreement, given "latitude for difference and for veiled attacks on me . . . but that tolerance can only go so far". Mr Donaldson said: "The move against the three MPs is, in effect, a move against half of this party. It is saying that the UUP is no longer a broad church, there is no longer room for dissenting voices."
He said that kind of politics belonged to communist China or Stalinist Russia.