MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to Northern Ireland, bringing the region into line with the rest of the UK on the two significant social issues. The two historic votes, arriving within little more than a quarter of an hour of each other, were greeted ecstatically by equalities campaigners. With ministers promising to respect the results, they could have vital repercussions for people in Northern Ireland. Both were the culmination of long campaigns by backbench Labour MPs, who said the government’s argument that the changes could only be made by the devolved Northern Irish government was defunct, given it has been suspended amid political deadlock since the start of 2017.