Kelly Livingstone was half-watching the 10 o’clock news on Thursday 1 October when she noticed an image of the MP Margaret Ferrier flash up on the screen. The co-owner of Vanilla beauty salon in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, immediately turned up the volume: “I thought, ‘Oh my God, she was in the salon on Saturday!’” Livingstone watched, aghast, as the report detailed how the Scottish National party member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West had travelled to London and spoken in the Commons while awaiting the results of a coronavirus test, then returned by train from London to Scotland after receiving a positive result. What was not included in the initial report was the fact that Ferrier had visited several local businesses on the day she took the test. Speaking for the first time about the immediate aftermath of Ferrier’s reckless behaviour, Livingstone told the Guardian: “All the girls started panicking; would we have to close down, or self-isolate? This was when [contact tracing] was quite new, so we didn’t know how it worked.” There followed a lengthy police interview, photographers at the door, and the understandable anxiety that a direct public association with Ferrier would deter customers from the new business, which had only opened its doors a fortnight before the UK’s first lockdown in March. Yet Livingstone’s initial reaction was remarkably generous. “We saw how much negativity she was getting and didn’t want to add to that. We issued a statement reassuring our clients that the salon was safe, and left it.” Fifty days later, she is preparing to close her business for a second time as the west of Scotland enters near-lockdown, and her sympathy for Ferrier – who continues to sit as an independent MP after the SNP immediately withdrew the whip – has evaporated. “I am gobsmacked that we are facing closure again but she is still taking a high salary and has not faced any consequences.” “Unreal” is how Livingstone describes Ferrier’s refusal to step down, despite widespread and continuing condemnation, including from her own former party leader, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. Elsewhere in the constituency that sense of betrayal and frustration is felt even more sharply as the local context changes. “We’re going into lockdown again because of people like her,” said Eilidh Hamilton, who works at the flower shop on Rutherglen’s Main Street. Her anger is palpable: “I’ve signed three different petitions but she’s still here. We’re not being listened to. It’s infuriating.”
Due process, of course, works to its own timetable: while the Met police in London decided to take no further action against Ferrier, Police Scotland announced on Wednesday that it had submitted an initial assessment to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and would be carrying out further inquiries under their direction. Any police investigation takes precedence over that of the Commons standards commissioner, whose final sanction could trigger a recall petition, which would allow her constituents to decide whether they want a byelection. The SNP is awaiting the outcome of these strands of inquiry while Ferrier remains suspended from the party. However, constituents raise a practical consequence of this extended limbo: while Ferrier did appear via video link, rather bizarrely with her camera switched off, at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday to raise a case on behalf of a constituent, on the streets her absence is noted again and again. Livingstone contacted Ferrier for help when she struggled to access a business grant in March: “If I ever need help again, who do I turn to? Because the last person I want to ask for help is Margaret Ferrier.” Clare Haughey, an SNP MSP whose Holyrood constituency overlaps with Ferrier’s, recognises the phenomenon: “A number of constituents have been in touch with me on reserved issues as they have categorically refused to contact Margaret, which I think speaks volumes. People need to have trust in their elected representatives.” Like almost all of Ferrier’s party colleagues, Haughey is firm: “I have been very clear throughout – to my constituents publicly and by messaging Margaret privately – she must resign.” The local paper, the Rutherglen Reformer, likewise finds it difficult to quote the MP, and still receives angry messages from readers demanding to know why she has not stood down, and why nothing can be done about that. In early October, the Reformer published a furious open letter to Ferrier on its front page, calling for her to resign “before you become a social pariah and not just a political one”. Ged Killen, the former Scottish Labour MP who lost his seat to Ferrier in 2019 after ousting her two year earlier, is convinced it would be easy to gather the required number of signatures – 10% of the electorate – to prompt a byelection, and anticipates a cross-party campaign to do so. “People need an opportunity to express their frustration. A byelection will offer people the representation they deserve in a pandemic.” In her only interview since the initial statement of apology, Ferrier discussed how she “panicked” after receiving the positive test result in her Commons office. Those who know her well say she has been shocked by the degree of castigation, but they also identify a stubborn, unstrategic streak that may go some way to explaining why she has hunkered down rather than attempting to repair local damage. For Livingstone, “sorry” would be a good place to start. “People still say: ‘Oh, that’s the salon that MP used’. Every second client asks me: ‘Has she contacted you to apologise?’ It would have been a really nice gesture, but there’s been nothing.”