THE SNP has been accused of trying to help shamed MP Margaret Ferrier 'spin her way out' of a crisis.
The MP, who has refused to resign after travelling on a train for hours while knowingly carrying coronavirus, said the party pushed her to publish a prepared statement about her conduct.
She claimed the whip was only withdrawn due to the massive public outcry about her actions, but originally there were promises that it could be returned as she had been 'honest' about what happened.
Claims later emerged that she had misled party and parliamentary officials about the timeline around when she received a cronavirus test, and why she was returning back to Scotland from Westminster.
It has also emerged she took a trip to a beach and gave a reading at a church service, while suffering from symptoms of the virus.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has now called for the SNP to explain its actions and accused the party of trying to help their former MP to 'spin her way' out of a scandal.
He said: "This revelation has made it abundantly clear that the SNP tried to help Margaret Ferrier spin her way out of the mess that she had created.
"While Ian Blackford and Nicola Sturgeon have both sought to distance themselves from Ms Ferrier, it is clear that the SNP was more than happy to help her attempt to explain her heinous actions.
"The SNP may have turned on Margaret Ferrier, but they only did so after it became clear that the public were not going to buy their excuses.
“The SNP must come clean over the extent of its collusion."
The SNP has been contacted for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article