SNP’s Margaret Ferrier must resign over shocking Covid breach – Scotsman comment

SNP MP Margaret Ferrier’s decision to travel on a train when she knew she had Covid put lives at risk and she must quit as an MP.

Margaret Ferrier, SNP MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, must resign after travelling while infected with Covid-19 (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

After it emerged that Dominic Cummings had travelled to County Durham despite the coronavirus lockdown, the Scotsman called for him to resign or be sacked. We were not alone. Among the chorus of voices calling for the Prime Minister’s chief adviser to go was the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Margaret Ferrier.

So, given she has committed a quite extraordinary breach of the regulations, it should be clear that the only honourable course of action for her now is to resign her seat.

By her own admission, Ferrier was tested for Covid after experiencing symptoms over the weekend but, despite this, she decided to travel to London anyway. On Monday night, after speaking in the Commons in praise of the hard work of NHS staff and care workers during the pandemic, the SNP MP received the news she had tested positive for the disease, but then inexplicably decided to travel back to Scotland on a public train.

Her actions were so serious that she could now become the first person in the UK to be fined £4,000 for a reckless breach of the rules.

There has recently been concern that some of the current restrictions are confusing – Boris Johnson had to apologise after he “misspoke” about new rules in the North-East of England. The Prime Minister’s father Stanley and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have also been criticised for, respectively, not wearing a face mask in a shop and breaking the “rule of six” about guests at a dinner party.

But deliberately travelling while suspecting and then knowing you have the Covid-19 coronavirus – a deadly and highly infectious disease – is about the most serious breach of the regulations imaginable.

An apologetic Ferrier appeared to realise this, apologising profusely and saying she had “let herself down”. But however ashamed she may be, the way she can recover her reputation and rescue some good from her shockingly bad judgement is to resign. Only by quitting as an MP will she demonstrate to the public that what she did was completely unacceptable.

By travelling with Covid, she put lives at risk. By resigning now, she will make anyone thinking of doing the same thing think twice and, potentially, save lives. The SNP has suspended her from the party, but not removed the whip, pending a police investigation.

She should think seriously about what she has done and take the decision herself.

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