NICOLA Sturgeon has hinted at arguments her government may use should Scotland’s right to hold indyref2 go to court.

The SNP have made clear their intention to put forward a bill legislating for the vote during this parliamentary term. The UK Government would then have to decide whether to allow the referendum to go ahead, or to challenge it in court.

Professor Ciaran Martin, the former constitution director at the Cabinet Office and an architect of the Edinburgh Agreement, previously told The National that such a court battle could benefit the Yes movement regardless of the outcome.

Martin said the “awkward” arguments that the Tory government would be forced to make, such as that Scotland has no right to leave the UK, may well push more voters towards the idea of independence.

READ MORE: Tories 'will be taking millions of Scots to court' if they challenge indyref2

The Oxford University professor made a similar comment following the developments in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, when DUP agriculture minister Edwin Poots ordered his officials to stop agri-food checks at Northern Irish ports.

EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness said the decision to halt the post-Brexit checks was “an absolute breach of international law”.

The news has also sparked reports that the Northern Ireland first minister Paul Givan will step down before the end of the week.

Despite foreign affairs being reserved to the UK Government, the Tories’ Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, told ITV that the fallout from Poots’s decision was “a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive”.

“It is something which is within their legal remit,” he went on.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that we have been warning about in terms of the stability of the executive, the decisions the executive’s ministers will take in order to ensure that products can move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in the way that they always have done.”

Lewis’s assertion that international trade is within the remit of the Northern Irish government did not go unnoticed.

“QCs acting for the Scottish Government in cases against the UK Government are going to have great fun with these quotes,” Martin wrote on Twitter in a post reshared by Nicola Sturgeon.

Law expert David Allen Green added: “The London government recently took the Scottish Government to the Supreme Court so that devolved assembly in Scotland could *not* do things like this.”

The First Minister also reshared that post, suggesting that the Scottish Government is noting the arguments being made over Northern Ireland for a future court case.

Elsewhere, Professor Holger Hestermeyer, an expert in international and EU law at King’s College London, also noted the contradiction in the UK Government’s positions.

“[Her Majesty’s Government] HMG’s view on the powers of NI is truly interesting,” he wrote.

“The lesson for foreign partners: you have to negotiate with devolved executives, not Westminster, if you want your agreement to be complied with. Not sure that‘s the message HMG wants to send.”

“It’s incredibly ironic that the logical consequence of a step taken to bring NI closer to GB would be to start treating NI as entirely separate from Westminster,” Hestermeyer added.