Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has plenty to worry about right now with the imminent implementation of his much-criticised Hate Crime crackdown. But there is mounting anxiety within the SNP about something else: the progress, or lack of it, of the police probe into the party’s finances.
Activists always put two and two together and come up with Unionist Perfidy
It is nearly a year now since Nicola Sturgeon’s home was raided by police, as part of Operation Branchform, their investigation into what happened to £660,000 of donations for a referendum campaign that never took place. The nation was agog last April as stony-faced officers descended on the former first minister’s home and put up that blue forensics tent. Sturgeon was later arrested and then released without charge, as were her husband, the ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, and former party treasurer, Colin Beattie. All deny wrongdoing. But, as the affair drags on, it is all but impossible for the SNP to move on.
Former chief constable, Sir Iain Livingstone, who launched Operation Branchform, remains unrepentant over the delay. He insisted this week that the investigation is ‘proportionate and necessary’. It has morphed, he has said, into a highly complex investigation into ‘potential embezzlement and fraud’. That was a real marmalade dropper.
Livingstone has, at least, said that ‘the sooner Operation Branchform is over the better for everyone’. Sean Clerkin, the nationalist campaigner who made the initial complaint to police in 2021, smells a rat: he has accused police of ‘dragging their heels’ and demanded an update. But Livingstone’s successor, Jo Farrell, remains, as they say in the Scottish media, tight lipped.
Clerkin had complained that the £660,000 was ‘ring fenced’ for the referendum campaign and should not have been recycled into general party expenditure. The SNP leadership has always argued, for their part, that since the SNP has an ongoing manifesto commitment to Indyref2 the money was not misused. But that has become somewhat academic now the investigation has evolved.
The fear in SNP Towers is that, whatever happens, the taint of corruption is going to hang over the party until polling day. In the worst case scenario, if someone senior is charged on the eve of the election, it could even wreck the SNP campaign. Even if there are no charges, and the police investigation runs into the ground, there is enough embarrassing material out there for opposition parties to fatally undermine the SNP’s probity.
Some of it has come from SNP politicians themselves. At last weekend’s National Council conference, senior party figures were quoted (anonymously) by STV demanding that police return the £110,000 Niesmann and Bischoff campervan that was famously seized from outside Peter Murrell’s mother’s home last April. They say they need it for the forthcoming election campaign. Their frustration is understandable, but it was a big mistake to raise the issue at all just when voters and the media had started to forget about Branchform. The SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, then further fuelled the story by joking that perhaps Tartan Army football fans could use the mobile home to travel to the Euros in Germany this year.
The less SNP politicians say about this affair, the better. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, COPFS, was not best pleased when former SNP media chief Murray Foote, suggested last year that the investigation was a ‘wild goose chase’. Nor when Nicola Sturgeon’s former senior adviser, Noel Dolan, described it as ‘over the top’. Prosecutors and the police have repeatedly warned journalists and politicians against ‘ill informed speculation’ and attempts to exert political pressure. Nevertheless, details keep emerging about Operation Branchform – such as the refusal to give back the said campervan – which only fuel public interest.
There is another more serous issue here still. In recent years, politics and policing have become dangerously intertwined north of the border. It began with the failed attempt to prosecute the former first minister, Alex Salmond, on charges of sexual assault and attempted rape. The police charge sheet was based on accusations made by senior figures in the SNP and Scottish government. Salmond was acquitted on all counts.
Police Scotland is now coming under intense scrutiny over its guidance on the much-criticised Hate Crime laws, which come into effect on 1 April. It emerged this week that comedians and playwrights could end up in hot water, even though Yousaf has always insisted that the arts community had nothing to worry about and that free speech is protected.
Most political of all however is this ongoing fraud investigation in an election year. Nationalists are paranoid at the best of times, but many are beginning to suspect that Operation Branchform is being allowed to drag on to damage the nationalist cause. There is no evidence to support this and the complaints about fundraising initially came from a nationalist. However, activists always put two and two together and come up with Unionist Perfidy. Chief constable Jo Farrell is holding a very hot brick. When, and how, she drops it could decide the fate of the First Minister.
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