The SNP is in a Peter Murrell muddle

Why did former SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell embezzle over £400,000 of party funds? Following his guilty plea last month and sentencing this week, anyone waiting for a definitive answer is no clearer on his motivations. 

“Because he could, until he was caught,” is the insufficient, only partial understanding we have. Pure greed? Boredom? Thrill-seeking? Or, a sense of entitlement enabled by a wider SNP culture that shuts down any scrutiny of those at the top?

On Tuesday morning, the now-estranged husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was led away from the High Court in Edinburgh to start a 5 year sentence for his crime. 

A pathetic figure — his shameful and humiliating downfall is reflective of the extent of his eminently mockable purchases, paid for with stolen cash.

There’s been much mirth at said items, which include nearly £20k on fountain pens, the infamous campervan driven only once, and a bizarre number of fancy kettles. 

But the question of how Murrell managed to get away with his light-fingered approach to the SNP credit card for so long is as equally only partially answered as the question of why a bald man spent £700 on two designer hair-dryers.

First Minister John Swinney has sought to portray his childhood friend — who he appointed as Chief Executive back in 2001 — as some kind of criminal mastermind who managed to circumvent otherwise strict rules. 

Contradicting this entirely, Lord Young — when sentencing Murrell — pointed out his deception was not undertaken using sophisticated methods. 

Swinney has rebuffed calls for an independent inquiry, insisting — often angrily — that he has sufficiently changed governance to ensure something like this can never again happen.

Meanwhile, Sturgeon, enabled by many a UK literary festival programmer to write her own legacy via repeated PR-spun book tours of her memoir Frankly, has berated any questioner who dares question her own role in this.

Not as the scorned, betrayed, and perhaps a little credulous wife of Murrell, who didn’t Google how much her new gifts of Montblanc pens and a bespoke library cost. But as the most powerful woman in Scottish politics — and Murrell’s boss — for the majority of the time his crimes took place.

There’s a large campervan-sized problem of having a husband and wife team in charge of both party and government. The obvious, honking problems that could cause, as former First Minister, the late Alex Salmond warned, would arise not when things were going well, but should there ever be internal trouble in the party.

“Nicola said she didn’t think it was a problem,” Salmond added in an interview, one year before his death. “And Peter looked at me with a look of sort of hurt astonishment, resentment, more than anything else.”

To a certain mind, perhaps there’s angry resentment — and thus splutters of self-defensive outrage — when a mentor-turned-nemesis is proven wholly correct from beyond the grave. 

But, you’d be forgiven for thinking being ripped off so badly — and yes, personally betrayed — by someone at the heart of the party machine would lead to reflection from both Swinney and Sturgeon. 

Apologies might even be forthcoming, to the betrayed donors who, in their pipe-dream of another independence referendum — never mind the utopia of an independent Scotland — donated whatever they could, only to be scammed?

Surely, there would be some urgency to discover precisely why nobody rang alarm bells over problems with the finances? Ah, but this is the SNP’s Scotland. People did warn, repeatedly, and were shunned and ostracised, much as Salmond’s sage advice was.

Dismissed entirely as a crank with some kind of agenda, first to call “You’ve Been Robbed” in 2020 was Stuart Campbell, the one-man powerhouse gadfly of the online Scottish independence blogosphere. 

Members of the National Executive Committee also dutifully raised concerns, only to be warned by Sturgeon to be “very careful” about insinuating there were problems with the finances. People resigned from the NEC; a treasurer stepped down. Had Sturgeon checked there were no issues before she stingingly rebuked members to watch themselves, essentially?

Nobody knows; only that Operation Branchform came along shortly afterwards.

Perhaps the warning signs should have been spotted much earlier

Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry was one of those raising concerns. There i strong crossover between those who questioned Sturgeon’s lunatic gender identity policies, her lack of independence strategy, and those warning about the finances. Each well-meaning critic was responded to in the same manner: deny the problem, punish the messenger.

Perhaps the warning signs should have been spotted much earlier. “Wheesht for Indy” became an obvious campaign strategy ahead of the 2014 referendum — i.e., don’t bring up pesky issues like what will happen to pensions under independence, no awkward back and forth about Scotland’s deficit. Just get that shiny “Yes” vote!

They didn’t. But, as the sizable pro-independence vote funnelled into the SNP post-referendum, this “wheesht” (Scots for “shush”) stance remained. Only now, it was for the SNP’s electoral victory, not necessarily independence, though lip-service was paid to it. 

Had it not been for Brexit in 2016, the SNP’s charm offensive may have already worn off. But this “material change” in political circumstances — most of Scotland voted Remain — meant that campaign-mode defensiveness, wheeshting, and spin continued.

The SNP’s electoral dominance relies on two things. First, a sizable minority of the Scottish people remain committed to the idea of independence. Second, the belief the SNP offers the best route to it. Can either survive another five years of this scandal-ridden governance? 

Curious pro-independence voices ask: would Peter Murrell have been raiding the coffers so brazenly if he believed another referendum was really on the cards? Have we been had? As with so much in this sordid affair, we can but speculate.