The SNP just can’t catch a break. The party is still reeling from a catastrophic general election result, a backlash over its decision to mimic Rachel Reeves’ cuts to winter fuel payments, and the ongoing police investigation into its finances. Now chief executive Murray Foote has cleared his desk just 14 months after taking up the position. In a statement, Foote, the former editor of the Daily Record tabloid, said he was stepping down to let someone else oversee party reorganisation and other preparations for the 2026 Holyrood elections.
The Nationalists retained only nine seats on 4 July, a plummet from the 48 secured at the previous election, and are divided over the failure to deliver independence and support for gender identity ideology. Party elder John Swinney stepped into the leader’s shoes in May following the resignation of Humza Yousaf, who unilaterally broke off the devolved government’s coalition with the Scottish Greens only to plunge his administration into a confidence crisis. Yousaf, in turn, had been elected just 14 months earlier to replace Nicola Sturgeon, who abruptly stepped down after a bitter row over gender reforms and the placing of a female-identifying rapist in a women’s prison.
Foote previously served as the party’s chief spin doctor but resigned after giving a media briefing dismissing reports of a drop in membership numbers. When the reports were vindicated, Foote said he had spoken in good faith and immediately quit his post. Chief executive Peter Murrell, who is married to Nicola Sturgeon, resigned after accepting responsibility for the row. Murrell has since been charged with embezzlement by officers investigating the fate of £660,000 in party funds. This is the same investigation which, notoriously, saw Murrell and Sturgeon’s home searched by police and a £100,000 camper van impounded from the driveway of Murrell’s mother’s home. Murrell denies wrongdoing. Sturgeon was arrested and questioned in 2023 but released without charge. There are growing concerns over the length of time this investigation, known as Operation Branchform, has dragged on for.
For the past 14 months, Foote has been one of the few constants in the SNP, a figure of stability in a party that has come to resemble an episode of The Thick of It with even more sweary Scottish people. His departure will not only deprive the Nationalists of a chief executive but of a canny political operator with vital media and communications skills, something the SNP needs more than ever right now. For almost two decades, the SNP was a party of iron discipline and boring stability. Now it can’t seem to go the length of itself without someone handing in their notice or getting the boot. Scotland’s governing party can’t govern itself.
Comments