Margaret Ferrier: Covid breach MP to learn fate as recall vote closes

The recall petition which could lead to a by-election in MP Margaret Ferrier's constituency has closed.

Ferrier, the former SNP member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after being convicted of breaking Covid travel rules during lockdown.

A by-election will be triggered if more than 10% of voters in the constituency vote for her recall.

The votes will be counted and the result announced on Tuesday afternoon.

Ferrier was reported to police after she spoke in Parliament while awaiting the results of a Covid test during lockdown in September 2020.

After testing positive, she took a train home to Glasgow to avoid self-isolating in a London hotel.

She was suspended from the SNP and had the party whip removed days later. She has been sitting as an independent MP since then.

Ferrier was arrested and charged with culpable and reckless conduct in January 2021 and pleaded guilty last August. A month later she was ordered to carry out 270 hours of community service.

The Commons' standards committee recommended last March that Ferrier should be suspended, a decision which was upheld by an independent expert panel after she appealed.

The panel concluded that she had acted with "blatant and deliberate dishonest intent" and a "high degree of recklessness to the public and to colleagues and staff at the House of Commons".

"This is not one momentary error of judgment. It is a sequence of events amounting to a deliberate course of dishonest behaviour," the panel said.

"She acted selfishly, putting her own interests above the public interest. There could therefore be no lesser sanction for this conduct."

MPs then voted to suspend Ferrier from the Commons for 30 days, a decision which automatically triggered the recall motion.

The petition was opened on 20 June and has run for the past six weeks. Constituents were able to sign the document at seven local council sites across the area or by post and proxy.

If the petition has been signed by more than 10% of eligible voters in the constituency before close of business today, Ferrier will be removed from her seat and a by-election called.

South Lanarkshire Council confirmed that the number of Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituents entitled to sign the petition was 81,124, meaning 8,113 signatures would be enough to remove Ferrier.

The result will be made public on Tuesday afternoon. A date for the by-election can only be announced when MPs return from parliamentary recess in the autumn.

Labour and the SNP have selected their candidates for the potential by-election.