Natalie McGarry (born 7 September 1981) is a Scottish former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow East from 2015 to 2017. She was elected as a Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate in the 2015 general election but resigned the SNP whip after six months and sat as an independent until the end of the parliamentary session in May 2017.
Prior to her election, McGarry was a SNP activist and convener of the party's Glasgow Regional Association. She was a co-founder of the Women for Independence group. In November 2015, following allegations of financial misconduct, McGarry withdrew from the SNP party whip while the matter was investigated. In 2016, she was charged with a number of fraud offences relating to apparent discrepancies in the finances of the SNP Glasgow Regional Association and Women for Independence. She pleaded guilty in 2019 to two charges of embezzlement, and was subsequently sentenced to eighteen months. Her convictions were quashed later that year pending a retrial in April 2022, at which she was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.
Early life and education
Born and raised in Inverkeithing in Fife, McGarry was educated at St. Columba's R.C. High School, Dunfermline, before studying law at the University of Aberdeen, and worked as a policy adviser for a voluntary sector organisation.
Political career
At the SNP's annual conference in 2012, McGarry argued on the anti-NATO side of the NATO debate in the Scottish National Party, stating that opposition "is not merely about nuclear weapons" and calling for the SNP to retain its opposition to NATO membership.
McGarry was one of the founder women activists who set up Women for Independence in 2012. She told the Glasgow Herald the group was created "over a glass of wine" with former SSP MSP Carolyn Leckie as its main driving force. Explaining the decision, she said: "We came together because a group of us arrived at the conclusion, individually, that women's voices were missing from both sides of the referendum debate."
McGarry was selected as the party's candidate for the 2014 Cowdenbeath by-election after previously failing to be selected as an SNP candidate in the 2014 European Parliament election. McGarry failed to win the by-election, gaining 5,704 votes (28.4%). A year later, she was selected to contest Glasgow East in the 2015 General Election.
McGarry became the MP for the Glasgow East Constituency on 8 May 2015, taking the seat from former Labour MP Margaret Curran which was part of a historic election result that saw the SNP win 56 out of Scotland's 59 seats at Westminster. McGarry took the oath of allegiance to the monarch, despite claiming to have reservations.
In January 2016, McGarry and author J. K. Rowling were involved in a Twitter row. McGarry accused the author of supporting an anonymous Twitter user with "misogynistic views". Rowling asked for an apology from McGarry and threatened legal action if it was not forthcoming. McGarry deleted the offending tweets and apologised to Rowling. In March, McGarry also claimed on Twitter that the organisation Scotland in Union was "headed by an internet troll and an outed holocaust denier". This was not true, McGarry having confused Scotland in Union's head with the similarly named Alastair McConnachie. McGarry later deleted her tweet and tweeted an apology. McGarry later made a formal apology and agreed to pay £10,000 in damages in an out-of-court settlement.
In February 2016, McGarry was detained for questioning by Turkish security forces after she used her mobile phone near a security checkpoint in south-eastern Turkey. She stated she was "recording the sound of bombs" falling on a nearby Kurdish area.
As she was still suspended from the party, she was not selected as the SNP candidate for her seat at the 2017 Westminster general election.
Embezzlement convictions
In September 2015, Women for Independence alerted police after noticing discrepancies in its accounts, prompting an investigation into campaign funds, which was publicly reported for the first time in November 2015. It was alleged that McGarry, in her role as treasurer, transferred money raised during campaign events into her personal account and used cheques made out to the campaign to deposit money into her own account, embezzling a total of £32,991. She denied all wrongdoing. On 24 November, after the allegations surfaced, it was announced that McGarry had resigned the SNP whip and was automatically suspended from the party. She continued to sit as an independent MP.