MPs back NI abortion & same-sex marriage
SNP U-turn on vow to abstain on non-Scots votes
ABORTION will be liberalised and same sex marriage legalised in Northern Ireland if devolution is not restored to the Assembly.
MPs in Westminster backed a same-sex marriage amendment by 383 votes to 73, while the abortion amendment was backed 332 to 99 yesterday.
The free vote in the Commons caused a split in the SNP, with pro-liberalisation MPs having to persuade the 35-strong group that it should abandon its policy of abstaining on matters that do not directly affect Scotland.
On Monday night, the SNP’s Northern Ireland spokesman Gavin Newlands MP caused outrage when he stated that Nationalist MPs would abstain on the vote.
But after an outcry from campaigners and internal party wrangling yesterday morning, Westminster leader Ian Blackford and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon signalled their backing for both measures.
Glasgow South MP Stewart McDonald tried to explain the U-turn, saying: “There is a hard border on civil rights and human rights down the Irish Sea just now.”
He added: “I don’t like this place interfering in devolved administrations, I wish it could be settled in the Assembly.”
The move was a big win for Labour backbenchers Conor McGinn MP and Stella Creasy MP, whose campaigning brought the matter before Parliament.
Same sex marriages had already been approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly but was vetoed by the DUP.
Scottish Labour MP Ged Killen highlighted the effects of the ban in his Commons speech.
He said: “This is personal for me because I am married to an Irishman and we can get on a plane in Glasgow as a married men and arrive in Belfast as civil partners.
“It is a great source of frustration listening to the DUP in here saying they do not want any regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and rest of UK.”