The Scottish National party has expelled the MP Angus MacNeil, who immediately confirmed he would stand as an independent candidate at the next general election. He was suspended from the party’s Westminster group last month after reportedly clashing with its chief whip, Brendan O’Hara, over his attendance record at Commons votes. The SNP’s conduct committee met on Thursday to discuss the case after MacNeil refused to immediately rejoin the group at the end of his suspension. MacNeil, 53, has represented the Na h-Eileanan an Iar, or Western Isles constituency, since 2005. He tweeted about his expulsion, using a kangaroo emoji to refer to the member conduct committee. He said: “The Summer of Member Expulsion, has indeed come to pass. As I have been expelled as a rank & file SNP member by a ‘member conduct committee’. “I didn’t leave the SNP – the SNP have left me. I wish they were as bothered about independence as they are about me!” MacNeil, one of the SNP’s longest-serving MPs, has been an outspoken critic of the party leadership in recent years, in particular over what he considers its timid independence strategy, but also on gender recognition changes and the Bute House agreement with the Scottish Greens. He is known to be a close ally of the former first minister Alex Salmond. He was suspended from the Westminster group for a week in early July after the online blog Guido Fawkes reported a public row in the House of Commons division lobby during which MacNeil called O’Hara “a small wee man” several times before throwing official letters about missed Commons votes back at him and storming off. His membership of the party was suspended later the same month because he refused to immediately rejoin the SNP group. He released a statement attacking the SNP leadership’s approach to independence, accusing it of a lack of urgency. “I will only seek the SNP whip again if it is clear that the SNP are pursuing independence,” he wrote. Thursday’s decision by the conduct committee means he is no longer able to sit as an SNP MP. An SNP spokesperson said: “Following his decision to resign from the SNP Westminster parliamentary group, and therefore no longer sit as an SNP MP, the unanimous decision of the SNP’s member conduct committee is that a breach of the code of conduct has occurred and Angus MacNeil MP has been expelled from the party. “Mr MacNeil was given the opportunity to rejoin the group, and subsequently chose not to attend the hearing.” The party’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, was asked about MacNeil on Wednesday when he spoke to journalists on the byelection campaign trail in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. He said the party’s MPs should not pick and choose when they hold the party whip. He said he and his colleagues wanted a positive outcome, but that this was not always possible in politics. By choosing to stand as an independent at the next general election, McNeil risks splitting the pro-independence vote against the constituency’s well-liked Scottish Labour candidate, Torcuil Crichton, the Daily Record’s former Westminster editor.