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Sinn Fein refuses to say if it will vote against Brexit in House of Commons

 First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Stormont today
 First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Stormont today  First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Stormont today

SINN Féin's Martin McGuinness has refused to say if his party would reverse its long-held policy of abstentionism from Westminster in order to vote against Brexit.

The High Court ruled today that the British government cannot trigger Article 50 to leave the European Union without parliament having voted on the matter. 

At a Stormont press conference earlier, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he had "no faith" that MPs would respect the Northern Ireland result of the Brexit referendum where 56 per cent voted remain.

The overall UK result in June's referendum was in favour of leaving the EU.

"Who knows where all of this is going to end up," Mr McGuinness said.

"There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that all of us face immense challenges that lie ahead.

"But one thing is for sure and that is that I have no faith in the British Parliament supporting the democratically expressed wishes of the people of the north to remain in Europe.

"That is our position and it is a very clear position. We will all obviously have to await the outcome of what happens in the time ahead and deal with that and that's precisely what we will do."

Asked if his party would change its abstentionism policy and have its four MPs vote, Mr McGuinness said he had seen a statement from the Labour Party which stated its intent to respect the outcome of the UK's referendum result.

Labour has 231 seats in the House of Commons so it would be unikely that Sinn Féin's four MPs could make a difference to the outcome.

Mr McGuinness told reporters that any decision to leave the EU would affect the island of Ireland.

"We are opposed to Brexit and we believe that any decision taken about the future of the people of this island - and of course Brexit will have a massive impact on every one of Ireland's 32 counties," he said.

"So we believe that any decisions that need to be taken about the future of this island [should] be taken between our administration in the north and the government in Dublin."

He added: "As far as I'm concerned, the assembly and the Dáil are the people who make the decisions about the future of the people who live in this island and of course overwhelmingly on this island people see their future in Europe and the referendum result clearly shows that 56 per cent of the people of the north - and that was a cross-community vote - made a very decisive decision that they want their future to be in Europe."

The DUP, meanwhile, said the High Court ruling that Parliament must approve any government decision to trigger Article 50 was "disappointing". The party has eight seats in the House of Commons and as such is the joint-fourth largest party.

The UUP has two MPS and said they too would vote in favour of Brexit.

The SDLP's Mark Durkan said his party's three MPs would "unapologetically defend the will of the 56 per cent of people who voted to remain in the European Union".