Trimble's Sinn Fein ultimatum puts Ulster on brink

Northern Ireland's power-sharing government looks ready to collapse next Tuesday, after an ultimatum delivered to the Prime Minister in Downing Street yesterday by David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader

Northern Ireland's First Minister told Tony Blair he and his party would not remain in government with Sinn Fein after the furore generated by reports of a republican intelligence-gathering operation. Mr Trimble indicated he would give the Government until Tuesday to begin moves to expel Sinn Fein, or face Unionist resignations from the Executive.

Mr Blair is to have further meetings today, including one with the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, before meeting the Sinn Fein leaders, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, tomorrow. But the Government does not favour expelling Sinn Fein, and Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness are thought unlikely to produce a republican concession of the magnitude needed to change Mr Trimble's mind.

The expectation is that the power-sharing Executive will probably be suspended by the Government. In that event, London and Dublin are determined that other parts of the Good Friday Agreement will be protected and preserved. But such a suspension would deliver a crushing blow to the hopes that Northern Ireland's two traditions have the capacity to work together in government. The Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists tried to maintain pressure by tendering resignations of its two ministers, to take effect on Friday.

After Mr Trimble's meeting with Mr Blair, he said it was "no longer sustainable" to share power with Sinn Fein, demanding the Government send a motion to the Assembly proposing Sinn Fein's exclusion. He added: "In the event of that not happening by Monday and Tuesday that will leave us with no alternative but to remove ourselves from the administration." Since any motion to exclude Sinn Fein would require the backing of other nationalists in the Assembly, it could be expected to fail.

Mr Trimble cited a Government warning in July that it was giving the republican movement a "yellow card' over paramilitary activities, and warning it about expulsion. He said of his discussion with the Prime Minister: "Our proposal to him, expressed very strongly indeed, is that is the course he should follow."

John Reid, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said: "We are committed to try to get a way of proceeding with power-sharing but at the moment it isn't easy to see how we can find a way through. There are a range of options. It isn't easy to see which would be the best in terms of preserving the process and the chances of getting power-sharing up and going again."

Before the meeting, Mr Blair insisted he was determined to find a way through the deadlock, but repeated that it required compromise on both sides. "The tragedy is I believe [most] people recognise the Good Friday Agreement, the peace process, offers the best chance of a sensible future if it can be made to work.

"But it can be made to work only on the basis that everyone accepts the full principles of that Agreement, equality of justice on one side and an end to any violence and terrorism on the other."

Police have returned to Sinn Fein computer discs officers seized in their offices in Stormont last week. Sinn Fein had said it was initiating legal proceedings to recover property "stolen by the Police Service of Northern Ireland".