News / MP protests ‘suspended’
A GRASSROOTS pressure group calling for Northern Isles MP Alistair Carmichael to resign and face a by-election has suspended its campaign.
We the People of Shetland – which has held protests on consecutive Saturdays in Lerwick since the MP admitted his role in leaking a private government memo during the election campaign – is pausing its efforts for now after it was confirmed that the politician will face an official inquiry into his conduct.
On Tuesday parliamentary standards commissioner Kathyrn Hudson said she would look into Carmichael’s conduct, while a legal challenge to the election result has also been lodged at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
The MP, who has represented Orkney and Shetland since 2001, has been fighting for his political life since admitting to leaking the confidential memo with the aim of damaging the reputation of Scotland’s First minister Nicola Sturgeon, and then lying about it.
The protest group’s founder, Brae school teacher Logan Nicolson, said on Wednesday that the sudden death of former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy had influenced the decision to suspend the protests.
The “increasingly polarising” manner of some of the debate surrounding Carmichael was another factor in the campaign coming to a halt.
Nicolson stressed that We the People of Shetland’s primary aim was to provide “tolerant, respectful and positive” discussion the nature of democracy.
“We wholeheartedly condemn any, and all, personal insults and threats leveled at Alistair Carmichael and his family. We also wholeheartedly condemn the abuse those calling for a by-election have been subject to.”
The group held two silent protests on Lerwick’s Commercial Street over the last couple of weeks, with crowds of around 50 people attending on each occasion to collect signatures for their campaign.
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