The Progressive Unionist Party leader, Mr David Ervine, has said he fears for his personal safety and for the safety of his family after a series of threats against his life from dissident loyalists.
The RUC recently warned Mr Ervine that his life was in danger. It is understood that dissident loyalists are the source of five threats to the east Belfast politician over the last six months.
According to Mr Ervine, the threats highlight the tension within loyalism and the fact that some factions are "hell bent" on damaging the peace process. The people responsible for the threats are "mindless and incapable of having vision or genuine opinion for the future," he said.
"I suppose they don't like me saying those things but they would probably be listening to some politicians who say I have sold out, that I am a traitor, that in some way I am appeasing violent republicanism, and all that nonsense," he added.
In total, over the course of the Troubles, Mr Ervine has received up to 30 death threats. At one time the threats were 100 per cent republican in origin. However, the vast majority now emanate from within the loyalist community.
Mr Ervine said yesterday that dissident loyalist groupings represented a "serious threat" as some "hard-core" former mainstream paramilitaries had joined the dissidents and the extremists were influencing some young people.
Last month a letter bomb addressed to a PUP branch secretary in Ballymena, Co Antrim, was made safe in a local postal sorting office. Another device was sent to a party member in June but did not detonate.