Loyalist paramilitaries who refuse to give up their weapons were warned today they risk being jailed after the British government confirmed it is to scrap decommissioning legislation.
Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said special laws allowing for legal disarmament will be renewed in February for a further year - but confirmed it will be the last window of opportunity.
In his strongest comments to date, Mr Woodward also warned the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) he will make room in prisons to jail those found to have held on to guns.
In 2005 the IRA decommissioned its weapons, but since then loyalist groupings have been slow to follow, sparking Mr Woodward's latest demand for action.
"It is just not going to be an acceptable feature of a normal society that groups of people can continue holding on to weapons which maybe one day they might hand in," he said. "It's my view that next February's decommissioning order should be the last.
"It is perfectly clear what the consequences will be - there will be no legal way to decommission."
He added: "People have got to get themselves out of the grip of the past, and I understand that, but I do not tolerate violence in any way.
"If people want to behave in a criminal way, then they'll be treated as criminals and they will come before the courts and they will go to prison where they belong.
"And I will take the fine defaulters out of prison and I'll create the places in the prisons for these people who refuse to come to terms with what's happened in Northern Ireland and where Northern Ireland is going."
In spring last year the UVF announced the end of its 40-year campaign of violence. But it controversially said that while it would put its weapons beyond reach of rank and file members, it would not yet decommission its arsenal.
A wing of the UDA destroyed a small number of guns last November, but the group's leaders have also refused to decommission its weapons.
Since then the Secretary of State has warned that the legal path for decommissioning would not be in place forever - but today he confirmed an effective deadline was to be introduced.
Mr Woodward said the time had come to make a clean break with violence.
"So they have got time to do it, time to plan for it," he said. "Nobody must be left behind, nobody must be prevented from having the opportunity to be part of the new Northern Ireland. But this is not indefinite."
PA