Peter Murrell may be the convicted criminal, but the scandal bearing his name has left senior SNP figures looking tainted and shifty — and the party is now refusing to allow an independent inquiry into the affair.
Murrell pled guilty to stealing more than £400,000 from SNP funds. John Swinney, the First Minister, has had a torrid few weeks since. Despite admitting, with some understatement, that “there has not been, in every respect, adequate controls in place” over the governance of SNP accounts, Swinney is stubbornly refusing an independent inquiry. He insists that “an extensive police investigation that has established serial criminality and a whole range of different actions to cover that up” was sufficient. Options proposed include the Electoral Commission, a KC from outside Scotland, or a joint investigation by Westminster and Holyrood committees. Swinney is having none of it.
“SNP refuses independent inquiry after Murrell theft; £650k independence funds spent elsewhere.”
His slipperiness is transparently self-serving, a desperate attempt to avoid more detail emerging about why attempts by some SNP colleagues to open up the accounts were closed down by the Nicola Sturgeon leadership team — of which Swinney was a key part.
Swinney is also playing fast and loose with the facts around £650,000 donated to the party during online fundraisers in 2017 and 2019. Promises at the time that the cash would be “ring-fenced” for a second independence referendum were not kept. Much of it was instead spent on the SNP’s election campaigns. Swinney now insists “that money is part of the resources that are available to the SNP and support its independence objectives, and the SNP is the party of independence, and we just campaigned for Scottish independence at the Scottish Parliamentary elections.” This perversion of language echoes Bill Clinton’s notorious defence: “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Angela Constance, the party chair and Health Secretary, gave a disastrous interview to Radio Scotland on Thursday morning. Asked about the ringfenced money, she said that “the whole raison d'etre of the Scottish National Party is to further the cause of independence. We do that day in, day out. All of our activities are about furthering the cause of independence.” That last sentence — an admission that literally everything the Scottish Government does is designed to advance the break-up of the UK — will be wheeled out by opposition parties in future.
Meanwhile, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Dave Doogan, branded any inquiry by MPs a “party political stunt” and an “unprecedented abuse.” The party, in power too long, appears determined to do whatever it wants.