Angus MacNeil MP expelled from the SNP

The Western Isles MP says ‘I didn’t leave the SNP – the SNP have left me’

Angus MacNeil MP has been expelled from the SNP.

Angus MacNeil MP has been expelled from the SNP.

The Western Isles MP had been suspended from the party’s Westminster group in July after clashing with chief whip Brendan O’Hara.

However the party’s conduct committee met on Thursday to discuss the case, and have decided to expel him from the party entirely.

On Twitter, Mr MacNeil said: “The summer of member expulsion has indeed come to pass as I have been expelled as a rank and file SNP member by a ‘member conduct committee’.

“I didn’t leave the SNP - the SNP have left me.

“I wsh they were as bothered about independence as they are about me!”

Mr MacNeil is one of the SNP’s longest-serving MPs, having first been elected in 2005, but in recent years he has been an outspoken critic of the SNP’s leadership, particularly on the issue of Scottish independence.

It was alleged Mr MacNeil threatened Mr O’Hara during a confrontation and he had the whip removed and was suspended for a week.

He then refused to immediately rejoin the SNP group at Westminster as he is not happy with the urgency around independence within the party, and said he would sit as an independent MP until at least October.

The conduct committee decided Mr MacNeil had breached standard 13 of their member code of conduct, which says any member resigning from the Westminster group also owes a duty to the party to resign as an MP.

A spokesperson for the party said: “Following the decision to resign from the SNP Westminster parliamentary group, and therefore no longer sit as an SNP MP, the unanimous decision of the SNP’s member conduct committee is that a breach of the code of conduct has occurred and Angus MacNeil MP has been expelled from the party.

“Mr MacNeil was given the opportunity to re-join the group, and subsequently chose not to attend the hearing.”

Following this announcement, the Scottish Conservatives say this shows just how bad the “civil war” within the SNP is.

Meghan Gallacher MSP, the party’s deputy leader, said: “Angus MacNeil’s expulsion is further evidence of the civil war engulfing the SNP - and Humza Yousaf’s inability to quell it.

“On the very day the Western Isles MP was being shown the door, his erstwhile colleague Joanna Cherry was revealing the ‘toxic’ mood among SNP MPs and how she’d regularly been reduced to tears by colleagues.

“At the same time, Nicola Sturgeon was telling a Fringe show of her anguish at being arrested in the police probe of the party’s finances, while senior SNP figures were urging Humza Yousaf to end his destructive coalition with the extremist Greens.”

She added: “The contrast between his original decision to suspend Angus MacNeil for arguing with the chief whip, and taking no action against his predecessor following her arrest, spoke volumes.

“Humza Yousaf cuts a weak, inconsistent figure - a leader in name only, being buffeted by events rather than shaping them.”