The Ulster Unionist Party has prepared a contingency plan with the dual purpose of collapsing the current multi-party talks at Stormont and of ensuring that there will be no engagement with Sinn Fein, according to a senior party member.
The party's security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, indicated yesterday that the UUP had devised an alternative political strategy which would see the party remain outside the multi-party talks at Stormont if the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, is unable to satisfy its demands on decommissioning.
Mr Maginnis, who will accompany his party leader, Mr David Trimble, to a meeting with Mr Blair this afternoon, appeared adamant that the UUP would reject the British-Irish decommissioning paper if the British government holds to its line that Sinn Fein can enter, and remain in, substantive talks without parallel IRA disarmament.
Although saying that the UUP was approaching today's Downing Street meeting with an "open mind", Mr Maginnis hinted that the UUP would propose an alter- native talks structure to try to keep Sinn Fein out of the process if the two governments remained firm on their decommissioning stance.
While the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, has urged that the talks should continue even if one or more parties withdrew, Mr Maginnis said that the current talks would not be feasible in such an eventuality.
He told The Irish Times that the present Stormont talks would be "fairly bankrupt" if the UUP, the DUP and the UK Unionist Party pulled out of the process. He believed that the loyalist parties would abandon the Stormont talks in such a situation.
Asked if the UUP was planning some form of multilateral, proximity or even "parallel" talks, which would preclude direct contact with Sinn Fein, Mr Maginnis replied: "We will not interface with a terrorist organisation at the table of democracy through the front door or the back door."
Although the UUP is likely to reject the decommissioning paper if it receives no satisfaction from Mr Blair, Mr Maginnis insisted that the party would "not abdicate its responsibility to engage in political dialogue". He would not give details of the party's contingency plan, but added: "You will not find us without purpose or reduced to a shivering wreck."
It is understood that the UUP's alternative political strategy is intended to help deflect criticism of the party for effectively seeking to destroy the current talks process because of Sinn Fein's involvement.
Meanwhile, the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, will have the opportunity to tell Mr Blair directly that he will not accept the British-Irish decommissioning paper. Dr Paisley and the party's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, received confirmation yesterday that the prime minister has agreed to meet them in Downing Street tomorrow morning.
Mr Robinson described the IRA ceasefire as "phony" and insisted that the DUP would not sit down with Sinn Fein. He believed that the talks would have to be aborted if the three mainstream unionist parties withdrew.
Proposing talks without Sinn Fein, he said: "This is a first occasion where a British government has determined that they would attempt to mix terrorists with democrats. It doesn't work.
"The reality is that the only people who are entitled to sit down at constitutional discussions are those who are committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. Let them come up with a resolution to our problems and I believe you would find the support for the Provisional IRA melting like snow off a ditch."
Mr David Ervine, spokesman for the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), regretted that the UUP appeared to be preparing "Plan B before dealing with Plan A". The mood among loyalists was that all unionists should seize the current opportunity and engage in inclusive talks, even if that involved Sinn Fein.
He said that the PUP had made no decision to withdraw from talks if the UUP withdrew. "Let's wait and see what happens", he added.
Given the "sufficient consensus" ground rules for the current talks at Stormont, Mr Ervine acknowledged that it would be very difficult for the parties to forge an agreement if the UUP abandoned the process.
