Another week, another by-election. Constituents in Margaret Ferrier’s seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have voted for their MP to be removed from her seat after she was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after being convicted of breaking travel rules during lockdown. Following the rule breach, Ferrier was also ousted by the SNP, and has since sat as an independent.
More than 10 per cent of eligible voters signed the recall petition, and a by-election will now follow. Ferrier first won the seat for the SNP in 2015 before Scottish Labour took it back in 2017. In 2019, she reclaimed it, with a majority of 5,000. It means both the SNP and Scottish Labour have an imperative to win the by-election in the Greater Glasgow seat. It will be viewed as a bellwether on the strength of the Scottish Labour recovery. A recent Panelbase poll predicted that Labour is on course to defeat the SNP at the next general election, win 26 MPs and become Scotland’s largest party in Westminster.
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