Rutherglen MP Margaret Ferrier has voted in the House of Commons for the first time since being thrown out of the SNP group over breaching covid guidelines.
In the clearest signal yet that she intends to tough it out against party calls for her resignation the Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP voted by proxy in the Commons on Monday evening.
Ferrier, who is self-isolating since travelling from Glasgow to London and back while suffering covid symptoms, cast her vote remotely in the Agriculture Bill.
The system of proxy voting allows MPs who cannot attend the Commons due to medical reasons to have their vote cast by another member.
Ferrier has had the SNP whip withdrawn in the Commons so members of her own party could not cast a vote on her behalf.
It is believed her vote was cast by Jonathan Edwards, a Welsh nationalist MP suspended from Plaid Cymru for a year after accepting a police caution for assaulting his wife.
It is the first involvement Ferrier has had in the Commons since facing calls to resign from everyone from the First Minster down.
Nicola Sturgeon has said the SNP “could not have been clearer” in its response to Margaret Ferrier’s breach of coronavirus rules and said the MP’s actions were “not defensible”.
The move comes after Ferrier claimed she was “hung out to dry” by the party after posting a scripted statement in which she admitted breaking the rules.
Earlier on Tuesday Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, claimed Ferrier is putting the independence campaign at risk by clinging on to her job after breaking coronavirus quarantine.
Blackford said that minds should be focused on “the growing support for independence” rather than the future of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP, who admitted travelling to London last month after being tested for Covid-19, and returning to Glasgow by train when she got a positive result.
Blackford said removing the whip was “the limit to what I can do within the powers I have” while Ferrier is investigated by the police and the parliamentary standards commissioner.
Ferrier has since said she believed the SNP whip was withdrawn only because of the public outcry over her actions.
Ferrier has claimed that the infection caused her to act “out of character” and she “panicked” before taking the train trip back to Scotland.
But in continuing to vote in the Commons Ferrier has issued a challenge to the SNP that she will not be resigning any time soon.
