Disgraced Covid MP brazens it out to vote
..and Ferrier’s ballot is cast on her behalf by Welsh nationalist MP cautioned for assaulting his wife
ROGUE Nationalist MP Margaret Ferrier has voted in the Commons for the first time since being thrown out of the SNP group for Covid breaches.
In the clearest signal yet that she intends to ride out party calls for her resignation, the Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP voted by proxy on Monday evening.
Ferrier, who is self-isolating, took part in the vote on the Agriculture Bill using a system that lets MPs too ill to come to the House have another member cast their vote.
Ferrier has had the SNP whip withdrawn in the
Commons, so members of her own party could not vote on her behalf. It is believed her vote was cast by Jonathan Edwards, a Welsh MP suspended from Plaid Cymru for a year in July after accepting a police caution for assaulting his wife. It is the first involvement Ferrier has had in the
Commons since it emerged that she took a train from Glasgow to London after being tested for Covid, then another from London to Glasgow after being told she had the virus.
Nicola Sturgeon has led widespread calls for her to resign as an MP and says the SNP “could not have been clearer” in its response.
Ferrier claims she was “hung out to dry” by the party after releasing a scripted statement admitting the rules breach.
Earli er on Tuesday,
Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, claimed Ferrier is putting the independence campaign at risk by clinging on to her job.
He said minds should be focused on “the growing support for independence” rather than her future.
Blackford said removing the party whip was “the limit to what I can do within the powers I have” while Ferrier is investigated by the police and the Parliamentary standards commissioner.