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Coronavirus: MP self-isolating after contact with SNP politician who travelled hundreds of miles following Covid diagnosis

Calls for SNP MP to resign 

Kate Devlin
Whitehall Editor
Friday 02 October 2020 15:31 BST
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Margaret Ferrier speaks in the House of Commons despite having coronavirus symptoms

An MP is self-isolating after coming into close contact with an SNP politician who travelled hundreds of miles across the UK  despite testing  positive for coronavirus.

The news is set to increase the already growing pressure on Margaret Ferrier to resign.

Jim Shannon, the 65-year-old DUP MP for Strangford, has tested negative  for Covid-19. 

However, he is self-isolating at home as a precaution, his party said.

Mr Shannon came into contact with Ms Ferrier on Monday evening when they sat at the same dining table in the House of Commons.  

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has led the calls for Ms Ferrier to resign.

The first minister of Scotland said she was “very angry” and had made clear to the politician “my view that she should step down as an MP”.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross also branded Ms Ferrier's decision to twice travel between London and Glasgow by train with coronavirus symptoms "reckless and dangerous".

Mr Ross himself resigned as a minister after his party refused to sack Boris Johnson’s chief aide Dominic Cummings over a trip to Durham during lockdown.

Shadow Scotland secretary Ian Murray has urged the SNP to "come clean'' over what it knew and when about Ms Ferrier's movements.

In another move which will pile pressure on the MP, Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle said that “different stories”, which he suggested had come from Ms Ferrier herself, had made it more difficult for parliamentary authorities to limit a possible outbreak.

Ms Ferrier, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, has been suspended by the SNP.

She has admitted travelling from Glasgow to Westminster with suspected coronavirus symptoms. 

In London she was told that she had tested positive for the virus and then made another train trip back to her home in Scotland.

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