Suspended MP Margaret Ferrier - Update - MP loses seat after recall petition - By-election will take place

How many of us went to work with the flu, or even just a cold knowing we would probably give it to the rest of the staff?
If she had covid proper she couldn’t have gone travelling around, when Mrs Fox and me had it we couldn’t even walk to our gate, or want to.
So if she wasn’t experiencing life threatening symptoms she must have had the vaccines, so what’s all the fuss. By your logic, she would have only killed people who had not had the vaccine and deserved to suffer.

So she didn’t have the same symptoms as you and Mrs Fox did - well we all know by now that this virus affects different people in different ways. Imagine she had passed it onto people she could have visited in a care home, or a school? Or passed it onto people on the train with underlying health conditions and it manifested itself on them a day later.

Your blase attitude shocks me, frankly.

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Blasé … and uninformed or misinformed, too - infected but asymptomatic people transmit COVID-19 just like those with minor or major symptoms. Hence, the need for tests.

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I am not saying that what Margret Ferrier did was right. But to put it into context according to Public Accounts Committee.

The Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) lost 75% of the £12 billion it spent on personal protective equipment (PPE) in the first year of the pandemic to inflated prices and kit that did not meet requirements – including fully £4 billion of PPE that will not be used in the NHS and needs to be disposed of.

How many people did the state put at risk due to contracts being given innapropriatly to friends & family? And what punishment will those who put others at risk due to the system being corrupt face?

Some of the covid contracts were awarded illegally according to the high court 7 months ago. Anyone noticed a rush to prosecute those involved in that?

One company that supplied useless PPE to the NHS, PestFix. Was referred into the government VIP lane for preferential contract treatment after its chair contacted the Department of Health saying he had recently attended the 80th birthday party of its procurement director’s father-in-law. A Deloitte consultant, assisting with Covid PPE procurement, forwarded the offer to civil servants, writing: “One for the VIP list please.”

There is nothing to be put into context about travelling around on public transport while you know you are infectious and can pass it on. :woman_shrugging:

Covid & PPE contracts are a different thing

The Tory government and PPE contracts is a topic covered specifically in other threads, most recently:

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:slightly_smiling_face:

Not when it comes to putting people at risk there is not. The only real difference is, one of the acts was carried out by the government for its own & its friend’s financial interests. The other was carried out by a Scottish Nationalist MP.

This is as much about which party she belonged to, as what she did.

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A Westminster probe will now look into whether her actions caused “significant damage” to the reputation of the House of Commons or MPs.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards began an investigation into her conduct on 12 October.

If Ms Ferrier is found to have breached the code of conduct, she could be ordered to make an apology.

The matter could also be referred to the Committee on Standards if deemed sufficiently serious.

Ferrier was an SNP MP at the time of the offence, but subsequently lost the party whip and has been sitting in the Commons as an independent.

She has so far resisted calls to stand down.

Not exactly disciplinary but certainly reproving … :neutral_face:

MP Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the standards committee has recommended.

The suspension would likely lead to a by-election in her Rutherglen constituency if it was imposed.

Labour would have high hopes of winning any by-election in Rutherglen. Ms Ferrier had a majority of 5,230 at the last general election when she won the SNP for the SNP, with Labour finishing second.

MP Margaret Ferrier has lost her appeal against a proposed 30-day ban from the House of Commons over breaching Covid rules.

The Commons’ standards committee recommended in March that Ms Ferrier should be suspended.

On Monday, the independent expert panel has upheld the original judgement.

The proposed ban is now expected to be endorsed by MPs, although no date has yet been set for this to take place.

Under commons rules if an MP is excluded for 10 days or more a so-called ‘‘recall petition’’ can take place.

If 10% of the electorate in the constituency call for a by-election, one will take place.

Recall for Ferrier … :mega:

The electorate for Rutherglen and Hamilton West in the 2019 general election was 80,918 - therefore just over 8,000 people would have to sign the petition to remove Ms Ferrier.

A petition officer then arranges for the petition to be open for six weeks. According to House of Commons Library, electors can sign it in person at a signing station or by post or proxy. If the 10% threshold is reached the petition officer informs the Speaker of the House of Commons - the seat becomes vacant when this notice is given.

Two MPs have been recalled through this process both in 2019 - Labour’s Fiona Onasanya of Peterborough and Conservative Chris Davies of Brecon and Radnorshire.

Ms Onasanya, who lied to police over a speeding ticket, had been jailed for three months for perverting the course of justice.

Meanwhile Mr Davies had pleaded guilty to two charges of making a false expenses claim.

This will be the first recall petition held in Scotland.

People can campaign for or against recall petitions and the Electoral Commission has rules in place for spending and donations on such campaigns.

Interesting … :thinking:

So she should … :neutral_face:

“Covid Margaret” reminds me of “Typhoid Mary” - and she should have resigned last year, in my opinion.
I could hardly believe she had the brass neck to appeal the decision to suspend her from Parliament, considering she has already pleaded Guilty to the criminal charge against her.

When you think of the places where you come into close proximity of other people, she decided to mingle in most of those places after being tested and while waiting for her test results! - Church, the pub, the train, the Houses of Parliament - then when she got her test results and was certain she did have Covid, she got on another train from London to Glasgow, just to spread it around a bit more.
Sheesh!

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Parliamentary conspiracies … :roll_eyes:

Conspiracies? Not a word I would associate with you Omah…
:sunglasses:

An agreement between multiple individuals or organisations to carry out an unlawful task.

The intent in this case would seem to be to pervert the course of justice.

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It would be an early electoral test for new SNP leader Humza Yousaf, with Labour hopeful of winning the seat.

Ferrier has already been ordered to complete a 270-hour community payback order by a court after admitting culpably and recklessly exposing the public “to the risk of infection, illness and death”.

SNP MP David Linden said: “There must now be a by-election, which the SNP has been calling for since Ms Ferrier’s Covid rule breach first came to light in 2020.”

MPs voted by 185 to 40 in favour of suspending Ferrier from parliament for 30 days, with the suspension due to start on Wednesday.

Of the 40 MPs who voted against the motion and opposed Margaret Ferrier’s suspension, 32 were Conservatives, two were DUP, two were Alba - Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill - and one was Reclaim.

The Conservatives who backed her included former ministers David Davis and Jacob Rees-Mogg, and party grandees Sir Bill Cash and Sir Edward Leigh.

The result means a recall petition can now be started. More than 10% of registered voters in the constituency will need to sign the petition for a by-election to be held.

Opinion polls have suggested that support for the SNP has fallen in recent months against a backdrop of Nicola Sturgeon resigning as first minister and party leader, and the ongoing police investigation into the party’s finances.

Ms Ferrier was accompanied in the Commons by Conservative former minister Andrew Selous and SNP MP Carol Monaghan.

At one point, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski was seen walking to the opposition benches to shake her hand.

Ferrier’s a gonner but, obviously, will draw her salary and expenses until the last possible moment … :roll_eyes:

A recall petition will open in suspended MP Margaret Ferrier’s constituency later.

More than 10% of registered voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West would need to sign the petition for Ms Ferrier to lose her seat.

A by-election would then be held in the constituency to elect a new MP. The petition will be open from 09:00 at up to 10 official signing places.

The petition will remain open for six weeks until 31 July.

Despite repeated calls to resign as an MP from many of her former SNP colleagues, she has so far refused.

If she won’t jump then she’ll have to be pushed … :man_shrugging:

We have much bigger things to worry about than this and Johnson eating cake.

This is the state our parliament and main stream media.

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This woman is typical of the “planks” in parliament who are supposed to represent us. I alway say show me an MP who tells the truth and I will show you a lair .