Trimble to sound out UUP on joining police reform board
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was today preparing to sound out party officers on how the UUP should respond to the British Government’s invitation to join a board handling policing reforms in Northern Ireland.
Pro and anti-Good Friday Agreement unionists in the party are split over whether the UUP should sign up to the new policing arrangements in the North by participating on the 19 member Policing Board.
Mr Trimble was expected to recommend that the UUP joins the board when he meets senior party colleagues today at the Ulster Unionist’s headquarters in Glengall Street, Belfast.
However the anti-Good Friday wing of his party, led by Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, is reluctant to join.
Mr Donaldson has publicly backed a call by the rival Democratic Unionist Party for the UUP to join them in boycotting the board until the proposals for police reform are made more acceptable to the unionist community.
Mr Trimble is also due to hold a meeting of the Ulster Unionists 120-member executive tomorrow to consider whether the party should take its three seats on the board.
Pro-agreement sources in the party last night insisted there was "no option" but for the UUP to go onto the board.
One source said: "If we don’t take our seats, the board as envisaged will collapse but the Secretary of State (John Reid) can nominate people to a shadow board over which we will have no say.
"By taking our seats, we can influence the reforms and with Sinn Fein not taking its share, we will actually be in a stronger position with a block of seven unionists including the DUP out of the 10 political appointees."
The source said the UUP leadership was seeking assurances on some aspects of the revised police reform implementation plan before it would nominate.
These included the nine independent nominations to the board, with unionists concerned about the implications of the Northern Ireland Secretary having to appoint the bulk of those nominees from a nationalist background to make up for any imbalance caused by Sinn Fein’s refusal to take its seats.
Republicans are refusing to sign up to the board because they claim the police reforms do not go far enough.
However, the rival nationalist SDLP has indicated it will take the three seats it is entitled to and has become the first nationalist party in Northern Ireland to urge its supporters to join the police.
