SNP parks decision on MP Thomson

THE SNP hierarchy has indefinitely postponed a decision on whether to reinstate Michelle Thomson, despite the party’s Westminster group openly backing the idea.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) discussed the Edinburgh West MP’s wish to have the whip restored yesterday, an idea endorsed by the SNP’s 54 MPs.

A spokesman said the matter had been “continued for further consideration”.

However, no date was set, and nor was there a commitment to air it at next month’s NEC. Thomson, 51, a former Business for Scotland campaigner with a £1.5m property empire, was elected in the SNP tsunami of May 2015. She resigned the whip four months later after it emerged her former solicitor, Christopher Hales, had been struck off for professional misconduct for his part in 13 of her property deals. The Scottish Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said Hales “must have been aware that there was a possibility that he was facilitating mortgage fraud”. The police have been investigating for a year although no one has been charged.

In recent months, Thomson, who now sits as an Independent, has persuaded her former Westminster colleagues to support her return to the party fold.

In July, she emailed them about her “distress”, denying her firm had targeted “vulnerable people” to snap up homes at knockdown prices.

But reinstating Thomson would have been controversial for the SNP, especially after a week that saw Glasgow East MP Natalie McGarry charged with fraud and Dundee West MP Chris Law quizzed by the police .