A former baggage handler who helped to foil a terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport is to stand as an independent candidate in a Westminster by-election.

John Smeaton, 33, said he would fight the Glasgow North East seat vacated by Michael Martin, the former Speaker, who resigned in June after the row over MPs’ expenses.

“I want to take on the huge party machines and beat them,” said Mr Smeaton. “We must have someone in parliament who knows how the public feel. I know I can do that. Someone who’s not going to fiddle expenses, not going to cost the country a fortune, but is going to stand up for the people.”

The intervention of Mr Smeaton in the by-election, which is expected to be held in November, could complicate what was expected to be a tight contest between Labour and the Scottish National party.

Mr Martin won 53 per cent of the vote at the 2005 general election, giving him a majority of 10,134 over the SNP. But even though the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had followed Westminster convention and not contested the Speaker’s seat, the nationalists took only 18 per cent of the votes, with most of the rest going to far-left candidates.

Last year the SNP won the adjoining seat of Glasgow East, overturning a majority of 13,500 in July to win what had previously been seen as an impregnable Labour stronghold.

But last autumn’s financial crisis checked the SNP’s momentum and in November Labour easily held off the nationalist challenge in the by-election for Glenrothes.

Mr Smeaton is the first candidate selected to stand for a Commons seat by Jury Team, which was founded earlier this year by Sir Paul Judge, a former director-general of the Conservative party, to back independent candidates. It selected 59 candidates and won about 80,000 votes during this year’s European elections.