Peter Murrell’s re-arrest has plunged the SNP into crisis

There is what can only be described as a mood of despair in SNP circles following the news that the former party chief executive Peter Murrell, husband of Nicola Sturgeon, has been re-arrested and charged with ’embezzlement of funds from the Scottish National party’. It is the latest shocking twist in the long-running investigation into SNP fund-raising and finances called Operation Branchform. Mr Murrell has now resigned from the party.

He was first arrested ‘as a suspect’ in April last year but was then released without charge. At the time, a £110,000 Niesmann and Bischoff campervan was seized by police from outside Mr Murrell’s mother’s Dunfermline home. SNP headquarters in Edinburgh was also raided and a number of items removed, while a blue forensics tent was erected outside the Sturgeon family home in Uddingston near Glasgow. That image has blighted the SNP ever since.

The Crown Office has renewed its customary contempt of court warning to press and public not to speculate about the nature of the investigation or the charges.