In 2020, Ferrier was suspended by the SNP and had the party whip withdrawn for breaching COVID-19 lockdown rules. She continued to sit as an independent MP. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and first minister of Scotland, called on Ferrier to resign her parliamentary seat. She was arrested in January 2021 and charged with "culpable and reckless conduct",[1] for which she pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to community service. In 2023, she was suspended from Parliament for 30 days and a recall petition was opened in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, which unseated her and triggered a by-election. This was the first successful recall petition in Scotland under the Recall of MPs Act 2015.
Life and career
Early life and career
Ferrier was born on 10 September 1960[2] and brought up in the district of King's Park in Glasgow, attending Holyrood Secondary School.[3] After living with her family in Mallorca for two years, she moved to Rutherglen from 1972 to 1990 and then resided in Darnley. She has lived in the Halfway district of Cambuslang since 2000, where she joined the Rutherglen branch of the SNP in 2011 (in her youth she had been a Scottish Labour member).[3]
Until 2015, she was a commercial sales supervisor for Terex Equipment, a manufacturing construction company in Motherwell.[4][5]
Political career
Before her successful election to Westminster, Ferrier was previously a candidate for the Rutherglen South ward of South Lanarkshire Council in a 2013 by-election (following the death of Anne Higgins). She lost the election to Ged Killen of Scottish Labour.[6]
She became the member of Parliament (MP) for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after winning the seat at the 2015 United Kingdom general election;[7][8] she achieved 30,279 votes, 52 per cent of the total cast and a 31-per-cent swing from the previous incumbent and their party. She was the first female MP, and the first for the SNP, to be elected in the Rutherglen/Cambuslang portion of the constituency or its predecessor constituency of Rutherglen;[3]Winnie Ewing had previously served a short spell as the representative of the original constituency of Hamilton for the SNP.[9]
Ferrier narrowly lost the seat in the June 2017 election to Killen by 265 votes.[10][11] She stood as a candidate in the 2019 European Parliament election.[12] She was again selected as the SNP candidate for the seat in the 2019 general election, where she defeated Killen on a 5-per-cent swing and gained a majority of 5,240 votes, or 9.7 per cent.[13]
Breaches of COVID-19 regulations and resignation
On 1 October 2020, Ferrier made a public statement apologising for serious breaches of regulations imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Five days earlier, on 26 September, she first noted symptoms of COVID-19 and took a test. She visited a gym, a beauty salon and a gift shop on the same day,[14][15] and gave a reading at a church service on 27 September.[16] Ferrier took a train from Scotland to London on 28 September and spoke in a debate in the House of Commons that evening.[17] She received a positive COVID-19 test result on the same day and returned to Scotland the next morning, again by train, having told her party whip that a family member was unwell.[17] Following her public statement, Ferrier was suspended from the SNP, and had the party whip withdrawn, meaning she no longer represented the SNP in Parliament but retained her seat as an independent MP.[18] She referred herself to the police and the parliamentary standards authorities.[19]
In October 2020, Ferrier's Rutherglen constituency association announced that they had asked her to resign her seat over the scandal,[26] which she refused.[27] In the same month, the Metropolitan Police said they would be taking no further action on the matter.[28]
On 12 November 2020, Ferrier made her first appearance in the Commons since breaching COVID-19 regulations.[29] In view of the circumstances, Richard Leonard, the leader of Scottish Labour, described the appearance as "a gross insult to her constituents".[30] He accused her of gross selfishness and started a petition for her resignation from parliament.[31]
On 4 January 2021, Ferrier was arrested and charged by Police Scotland[32] with "culpable and reckless conduct".[1] On 3 February 2021 she appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court; no plea or declaration was made and she was given bail.[33] She pleaded guilty to the charge on 18 August 2022,[34] and on 13 September was sentenced to 270 hours of community service.[35]
On 30 March 2023, the Commons Select Committee on Standards recommended that she be suspended from Parliament for 30 days.[36] She lost her subsequent appeal on the recommendation, which was upheld on 22 May 2023[37] with the independent panel finding that she "acted with blatant and deliberate dishonest intent. She acted with a high degree of recklessness to the public and to colleagues and staff at the House of Commons. She acted selfishly, putting her own interests above the public interest."[38] The House of Commons voted to suspend Ferrier for 30 days, which led to a recall petition in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. The result of the petition was declared on 1 August; almost 15 per cent of eligible constituents had signed, unseating Ferrier and triggering a by-election in the constituency. Ferrier confirmed that she would not seek re-election.[39] The by-election, held on 5 October, was won by Michael Shanks of the Labour Party.[40]
^"Appeal by Margaret Ferrier MP"(PDF). UK Parliament. Independent Expert Panel. 22 May 2023. Archived(PDF) from the original on 22 May 2023. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
