Protestors call for MP’s resignation as SNP urges investigation by parliamentary standards commissioner

May 23, 2015 at 11:45 pm

Protestors call for Alistair Carmichael's resignation outside St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, this afternoon. (www.theorcadianphotos.co.uk) — Protestors call for Alistair Carmichael’s resignation outside St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, this afternoon. (www.theorcadianphotos.co.uk)

The SNP has back calls for a formal investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, following Alistair Carmichael’s admission, yesterday, that he was responsible for leaking a false memo about Nicola Sturgeon’s conversation with the French Ambassador – and the fact that he denied any knowledge of it until after the General Election.

Stewart Hosie MP, the SNP’s depute leader, said: “Mr Carmichael has no credibility in continuing as an MP and in my opinion he should stand down. It is appropriate for the Standards Commissioner to get involved and arrive at her own conclusions, having investigated the full facts.

“This dirty trick has all the appearance of being orchestrated when Alistair Carmichael was an MP, before the election campaign.

“Mr Carmichael went on TV after this bogus story broke, denying that he had anything to do with the dirty trick. He said that he knew nothing about it until he got a call from a journalist. We now know all of this to be 100 per cent untrue.

“The dirty trick was bad enough – but his blatant attempt to cover it up until after the General Election is ten times worse.”

He added: “Had Alistair Carmichael admitted the truth before polling day, he would have been a discredited candidate and the result may well have been different – it’s possible he would have gone the same way as every other Lib Dem MP in Scotland and been turfed out by the voters.

“Mr Carmichael’s majority plummeted from nearly 10,000 to just over 800, and there appears to be a very strong reaction in Orkney and Shetland against him this weekend. The people in his constituency deserve to know the whole truth, and in my view would be best served by Mr Carmichael standing down.”

Silent protests were held in Kirkwall and Lerwick today, calling for the resignation of the Northern Isles MP.

In Orkney, the protest took place outside St Magnus Cathedral and was organised by Yes Orkney – the campaign group who called for a yes vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence.