I know this won’t be a particularly popular opinion but I must say I felt just a little bit of sympathy for the SNP MP Margaret Ferrier the other day when her fate was sealed in the House of Commons. We all know what happens when a crowd turns nasty and an individual is isolated in the office, or in the playground, and parliament is the worst playground of all. What Ms Ferrier did was wrong, so why does it still feel a bit like bullying?

Maybe it’s this: Ms Ferrier broke the rules during the pandemic by speaking in Parliament and taking a train across the country while positive for coronavirus, so a bad breach of the rules for sure. But it strikes me that, in the eyes of her SNP colleagues, she did something much worse: she broke rules sanctioned by the party, meaning that in their opinion, she wasn’t just irresponsible, she was disloyal. And this was deep in the Sturgeon days remember, when all of us had to do what she said, even me.

Not everyone in the SNP, obviously, has taken the same approach to the problem of Ms Ferrier; there are some in the party who ask why the SNP has supported a process against one of their own that will inevitably lead to a unionist MP instead of a nationalist one; it’s the old thing of independence trumping everything including a pandemic. Fortunately, sensible voices won the day, leaving Ms Ferrier on her own in the Commons except for a rag-tag alliance drawn from the Tories, the DUP and Alba, who may have voted against the suspension because they fear that one day the same technique could be used against them.

The suspension of Ms Ferrier will also now bring about an unusual by-election with local councillor Katy Loudon as the SNP candidate, but not so unusual that there aren’t bigger lessons to be learned from it. It’s certainly the first time a recall petition has been seen in Scotland and perhaps there’s something to be said for Ms Ferrier waiting to see what her constituents do rather than going off in a strop like Boris Johnson’s done. But assuming the Rutherglen petition gets the required 8,000 signatures, we’re in for a test of what people think of Ms Ferrier (a test she’s probably already failed to be fair) as well as a test of something a bit more profound that could affect us all.

The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s public take on it is that at that every stage of the process, the constituents of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have been let down, but he also knows that Rutherglen is one of the constituencies that’s key to the bigger strategy to break through again in Scotland. Anger at Ms Ferrier will certainly help to carry the Labour candidate well over the line, but not every constituency has a Ms Ferrier, thank goodness, so Labour must be confident that something deeper is going on and that it’s focusing its strategy on the places that matter.

Rutherglen is undoubtedly one of those places: communities in Scotland where the SNP has done well in recent years and overturned a long history of Labour representation. It’s something similar to what the Tories did in the north of England: they tapped into discontent and anger and attracted support from people who wouldn’t normally vote for them. In that sense, we’re talking here about Scotland’s Yellow Wall.

In reality, the constituencies on the wall are all around the centre of Scotland where post-industrial poverty is widespread and serious. Bellshill. Airdrie. Motherwell. Inverclyde. West Dunbartonshire. And large parts of Glasgow of course. And Rutherglen. In all of these places, Labour was toppled but crucially Labour is still in second place. The Tories and the Lib Dems don’t have a chance of doing well in these places but Labour most certainly does.

According to some of the people in Labour I talk to, the party is also confident that the factors they need to do well along the Yellow Wall are coming together, the first of which is the absence of Nicola Sturgeon. Particularly during the pandemic, Ms Sturgeon became a quasi-presidential figure who was widely admired, in and out of the SNP. Even those who were wary of her motives were forced to recognise her abilities, even me.

The second factor is the constitution, which is receding up the beach a little as a dominant factor. In Rutherglen and other constituencies like it, independence undoubtedly gave the SNP a chance to stir the pot and to promise something different and new and it worked. However, they were never going to be able to do it indefinitely and their ability to use the strategy is now much reduced because voters know nothing is gonna happen any day soon.

Which leaves the final factor and probably the most interesting because it’s starting to work for Labour in the way it was working for the SNP for quite some time. Many voters in the Yellow Wall – in Bellshill, Motherwell, Airdrie, you name it – they really did pin some hope on the idea of the SNP and independence as a vehicle for change in communities where there hasn’t been enough of it. But now that the vehicle has lost a couple of wheels, or transmogrified into a campervan, some (only some) are starting to think about Labour again.

There is a huge opportunity here for Mr Sarwar, clearly, but also huge dangers. The opportunity is that Labour can, and should, target its resources on seats where there is genuine evidence that they are making headway. Undoubtedly, many Labour voters have been lost for good because they want independence and only independence, but there is another cohort that’s willing to give Labour another go and, to succeed at the next election, the party should be talking to them more than anyone. Don’t waste time in Tory Aberdeenshire or the Borders or the Liberal Highlands, throw everything you have at the Yellow Wall.

The danger, of course, is that, even if voters in the Yellow Wall listen to Mr Sarwar, the circle of politics spins ever faster and that the faith (probably cautious) that some people will put in Labour will not be repaid. Mr Sarwar’s promise, essentially, is that he can improve the lives of people in Scotland’s poorer communities as part of a progressive, reformed UK. He’s telling the people of Rutherglen, like the SNP told them before, that he can make their lives better, and it looks like they’re listening for now.

But the problem is this: the disillusionment with the SNP could very quickly turn to disillusionment with Labour again in quick succession. It’s why, in the end, the misdemeanours of Margaret Ferrier don’t really matter all that much. What matters much more are the hopes and expectations of the voters.