Speaking on behalf of the three dissident MPs, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson confirmed they would not retake the party whip at Westminster, reports Dan Keenan, Northern news editor.
Within minutes of the UUC vote, which called on them to reverse their resignation in the House of Commons, the Lagan Valley MP said the three would not rethink their position. They would remain outside the UUP parliamentary party so that they could vote against the wide range of legislation linked to the Joint Declaration.
He added, however, that efforts with "other colleagues" would continue to find consensus and so end the damaging party split Asked if they could ever anticipate retaking the whip with the Joint Declaration in place, Mr Burnside said: "Not in the short term."
Mr Donaldson condemned the vote as "not conducive towards the kind of atmosphere in the party that we need to address the real issues that are at the heart of the divisions".
"Our position remains as it was," he said. "We believe that the majority of unionists in the country are opposed to \ Joint Declaration. Someone has to represent their views and we will be there in parliament putting forward our concerns and seeking to change that which we disagree with." He stressed that the party split was founded on policy not personality and he rebuffed accusations that he was manoeuvring for the party leadership himself.
"At the heart of this is the question of the direction of the political process. Our view remains the same, that the Joint Declaration is not a basis for moving forward and that the UUP needs to find a consensus so that we can approach the political process with one voice. At the moment our party is and remains deeply divided and the meeting today did not resolve that." Mr Burnside warned that the two governments, "the joint authority that governs over us", could decide to call an autumn Assembly election. He said the UUP was in no position to contest such a poll. "The biggest mistake you can make in politics is to send out a mixed message. We would suffer if there was an election in four, six, eight weeks." He added they did not want mere tinkering with the declaration. "That's bad politics," he said.
He said he was pessimistic about the chances of reuniting the UUP in the short term.
Confirming their opposition to party policy for the foreseeable future, he added they had "a long-term intention of going back and reuniting the parliamentary party and the UUP in the country. But we are a long, long way away from that."
Mr Donaldson said disciplinary action would do nothing other than deepen existing divisions and would change nothing in terms of the 45 per cent of UUC members who vote against the leadership.