Margaret Ferrier is to appeal against a suspension from the Commons for breaking Covid rules that could lead to a possible byelection and a tight race between Labour and the SNP.
The former Scottish National party MP, who now sits as an independent, has appealed to parliament’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) to review her 30-day suspension from the House of Commons, a sanction that would trigger a recall petition in her Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat.
The seat was won by the SNP in 2019 and by Labour in 2017, and would be a crucial electoral test for Scotland’s new first minister, Humza Yousaf, whose party has been mired in financial scandal and personal clashes.
The length of the suspension was also a cause of alarm for backers of Boris Johnson, who is being investigated by the privileges committee about breaches of Covid rules in Downing Street, and who is hoping to avoid a similar lengthy sanction which may prompt a byelection in his Uxbridge seat.
Any suspension of 10 or more working days automatically triggers a recall petition, which if signed by 10% of constituents leads to a byelection.
The Scottish Labour party believes it would win that byelection, after the SNP’s popularity plunged during its recent leadership contest and the controversy over its finances.
It has already been campaigning in Rutherglen handing out leaflets accusing Ferrier of being a “criminal SNP MP who put lives at risk”.
It is asking local voters to sign up to text and email alerts when the recall petition goes live. The SNP leader, Yousaf, has admitted his party faces a significant challenge holding the seat.
Ferrier, who lost the SNP whip, was sentenced to carry out 270 hours of community service after pleading guilty to breaching Covid rules. Ferrier won a majority of 5,230 at the last general election, with Labour finishing second.
The breach of the rules occurred in September 2020, when Ferrier developed symptoms and took a Covid test but the next day attended church and had lunch with a family member.
Two days later, while awaiting the results of a Covid test, she travelled by train to London, took part in a Commons debate and ate in the members’ tearoom in parliament. She then travelled home to Glasgow by train the next morning, a journey of up to five hours, despite being told she had tested positive.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, said Ferrier had breached the code of conduct for MPs “by placing her own personal interest of not wishing to self-isolate immediately or in London over the public interest of avoiding possible risk of harm to health and life”.
She also breached the code because “her actions commencing from when she first took a Covid-19 test to when she finally begins self-isolation have caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, and of its members generally”.
Ferrier had until 4pm on Monday to submit an appeal to the IEP, which reviews sanctions handed out by the standards committee of MPs. The panel’s chair, Stephen Irwin, wrote to the House of Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, confirming Ferrier would appeal.
