13:03

The votes of Northern Ireland MPs in the House of Commons could prove critical if Theresa May and the government is forced to ask parliament to trigger article 50.

All eight Democratic Unionist Party MPs are guaranteed to back Brexit in the Commons given that they were the only major political force in the Stormont Assembly to active back a leave vote in June’s referendum.

However, the position of the two Ulster Unionist MPs - Fermanagh/South Tyrone’s Tom Elliott and Danny Kinahan in South Antrim - is interesting. In June UUP leader Mike Nesbitt called for a remain vote.

The UUP has now switched position and said its MPs will back the government to allow for the referendum result to be implemented. The party will argue this is because the entire electorate of the UK has spoken in the referendum and it is their duty to back up that outcome in the Commons.

The switch though may also be due to fears of being further outflanked by the DUP especially given a number of recent defections from the UUP to the Democratic Unionists. In essence the UUP is again moving to the right in order to slow down its decline vis a vis the DUP.

All three SDLP MPs will definitely vote to block Brexit given that the party campaigned vigorously for remain and was involved in last week’s failed legal action in the Belfast High Court to declare Brexit null and void in Northern Ireland only.

Sinn Fein will not vote in the Commons because it boycotts the parliament although the party will come under fire accused of failing to add to the Remain voices in the chamber that could scupper Brexit.

Yet it is the votes of the unionist bloc that will prove far more critical if and when the referendum result is tested in the House of Commons. Expect more demands from DUP first Minister Arlene Foster for special treatment for Northern Ireland (guaranteed post-Brexit farming subsidies for Ulster agriculture for instance) in order to bolster the government’s numbers in a Brexit vote .... even one after a general election.