SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has defended Sinn Féin’s continued abstention from Westminster in light of last night’s Brexit votes in the House of Commons. 

British MPs last night again rejected all of the alternative options put before them in the latest round of indicative Brexit votes – with one option backing a customs union losing by just three votes. 

There were only four non-binding options before MPs last night. A similar effort to reach a consensus on Brexit last Wednesday – when eight options were tabled – also failed.

Sinn Féin has seven MPs elected to Westminster from constituencies in Northern Ireland but has long operated an abstentionist policy whereby it refuses to sit in the parliament.

Following the votes, Minister for Health Simon Harris tweeted that “with a margin of only three votes in the House of Commons” last night, it was “hard to see how Sinn Féin contend that taking their seats would not change the outcome of Brexit”. 

McDonald addressed the tweet while speaking to reporters outside Leinster House earlier today. 

She said that as a matter of policy and principle, Sinn Féin “will not swear an oath to a foreign power”. 

“I would be really astonished if it is the case that Simon Harris … or anyone else who is elected to the Oireachtas, any party of the Oireachtas would come out and say that they would be prepared to take such an oath,” McDonald told reporters. 

Touching on the idea of having Sinn Féin MPs in Westminster, McDonald said: 

Don’t imagine for a second that seven Sinn Féin MPs could enter Westminster and make sense of the utter chaos and circus that we’ve witnessed over the last number of months.

That’s just not a real position and in fact I would suggest to you that were Sinn Féiners to enter Westminster, it would only heighten the political temperature. 

“I would suggest to you that it would have the practical effect of making things perhaps even more confused and more chaotic,” McDonald said. 

She noted that her party’s MPs were elected “explicitly on an abstentionist mandate”. 

“It’s a matter of principle, we are a party that is for a United Ireland, for Irish independence. We’re also a party that understood and understands that Irish interest in this Brexit debacle are not best advanced at Westminster,” McDonald said, adding that the purpose of the UK Parliament is to “advance British interests”. 

“Irish interests in this scenario were always going to be advanced and protected, or not, by the government in Dublin whose duty it is to defend Irish interests in conjunction with our European partners,” she said. 

A poll carried out for RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live / TheJournal.ie by Amarách Research in December found that 57% of people think Sinn Féin MPs should take their seats in Westminster so they can vote for May’s Brexit deal.

Of the 1,000+ Irish adults surveyed for the poll, 20% said the MPs shouldn’t, while 23% said they didn’t know either way.

With reporting by Sean Murray