COVID-19 - the rules and how they don't apply to Margaret Ferrier.

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I see that Margaret Ferrier, the SNP MP who broke COVID-19 regulations without resigning, has resurfaced in parliament (although maybe only via video link). As an SNP supporter and member I feel I should comment. Firstly, it needs to be remembered that Ferrier actually had COVID-19 when she travelled between London and her home in Scotland (not to mention her other transgressions at the time) while, for example, Catherine Calderwood did not have COVID when she and her family travelled to Fife from Edinburgh (I believe it was). There was no chance Calderwood would have spread the virus unless someone in her party actually had COVID and the car they had travelled in had broken down and they had required road side assistance. Calderwood, admittedly after initial resistance, recognised her position was untenable and she fell on her sword. Ferrier, on the other hand, refused to do so - and still continues to do so.

While the SNP acted quickly, and correctly, to remove the whip from her, she has not been ejected from the party despite her, more or less, admitting her errors. I’m OK with that as it’s only correct that disciplinary proceedings are properly followed. I also think, if she had stepped down as an MP, that expulsion from the party might be a punishment too far. In not resigning, however, she has potentially damaged the SNP and I now feel that expulsion from the party is the only acceptable outcome.


But what about Ferrier not resigning and her excuse for not doing so? One of the reasons she has given (along with not wanting to see her staff unemployed) is that her illness coloured her judgement. I can accept that that is a possibility - and could well be true. But even if true that is simply unacceptable for someone in her position. She claims friends, colleagues and the SNP have abandoned her and left her out to dry - and quite rightly, as far as I’m concerned. She needs to realise that all she has done is to have provided others with the opportunity to make the same excuse - and that includes those who deliberately break the rules in future in the belief that they can claim if “Ferrier got away with this excuse then so can I”! In addition to that she has only confirmed that there is one rule for those with some sort of authority but a different rule for the ordinary man and woman on the street. I suggest that someone needs to point these issues out to her - and that she then takes the correct action and resigns.

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