A senior Ulster Unionist has rejected a claim by party dissident Ms Arlene Foster that Mr David Trimble is applying a "Stalinist" regime by demanding that Mr Jeffrey Donaldson support his leadership and follow party policy.
As Mr Donaldson and fellow anti-Belfast Agreement Ulster Unionists consult over whether they should resign from the party, Ms Foster launched another verbal assault on the party leader, Mr Trimble.
Last Friday the party's 110-member executive demanded that Mr Donaldson obey party policy or face expulsion from the UUP. Ms Foster, an MLA for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, said yesterday that she would not observe what she described as a "diktat" from Mr Trimble.
"David Trimble is turning into a Stalin," she said. "He has made it clear that he wants a man who topped the poll [Mr Donaldson] out of the party, that he wants him to be bound by a policy he can't accept ... It is complete madness," she said.
Ms Foster said she was standing by her position that Mr Trimble must resign as leader. However, with Mr Trimble hanging firm, she said she was consulting with Mr Donaldson and other anti-agreement Ulster Unionists, but had not yet made a decision on whether to resign.
DUP sources believe that Mr Donaldson, along with Ms Foster and another Lagan Valley MLA, Ms Norah Beare, are on the verge of walking away from the UUP, but that if they resign before Christmas they would defer stating whether they would join the DUP until later.
Mr Donaldson said last night that he still has not made his decision, and is consulting with colleagues.
The former UUP minister Mr Dermot Nesbitt, however, "rejected and repudiated" the allegation that Mr Trimble was a Stalinist-type leader. "I want Jeffrey to remain in the party, but on the same terms as everybody else, by abiding by the rules," he said.
"But if he can't abide by the rules, then why is he remaining in the party?" he asked.
