Former Scotland first minister Nicola Sturgeon says she is “innocent of any wrongdoing” after she was arrested as part of a criminal investigation into the party’s finances.
Ms Sturgeon, who stepped down from her role in March, was arrested on Sunday morning after meeting police by arrangement. She was released without charge shortly before 5.30pm. In a statement about an hour after her release, she said she was “certain I have committed no offence” and her arrest was “a shock and deeply distressing”. She insisted she would “never do anything” to harm the Scottish National Party (SNP) or Scotland.
Earlier, a SNP MP suggested the party should suspend its former leader. Angus MacNeil, who represents a constituency in the Outer Hebrides in Westminster, said it is time for the SNP to put “some political distance” between it and the “soap opera” of the financial scandal that has engulfed Ms Sturgeon and several people close to her.
Her arrest came two months after the arrest of her husband, the SNP’s former chief executive and one-time top power broker, Peter Murrell. Colin Beattie, a member of the devolved Scottish parliament, quit as SNP treasurer when he was also arrested in April. Both were released without charge.
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The investigation concerns the whereabouts of about £660,000 in party donations collected after Brexit from supporters of a new independence referendum, which was never held. The money for a referendum was meant to be ring-fenced, but by 2019 the SNP had less than £100,000 in cash on its balance sheet and the donations have yet to be accounted for.
Members were also not told until recently that the party’s auditors quit 18 months ago. Now all three signatories of the SNP’s most recent filed accounts – Ms Sturgeon, Mr Murrell and Mr Beattie – have all been arrested.
Officers in the investigation, called Operation Branchform, seized a £110,000 luxury motorhome from outside the home of Ms Sturgeon’s mother-in-law in April. They also searched the marital home of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell as well as the SNP’s party headquarters.
The financial scandal has overshadowed the first few months of the tenure of Ms Sturgeon’s replacement as party leader and first minister, Humza Yousaf. Viewed as close to Ms Sturgeon, he won the SNP’s leadership contest largely by promising “continuity” from her regime.
BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show broadcast an interview with Mr Yousaf hours before Ms Sturgeon’s arrest, in which he said he was still in regular contact with her. He said she was in a “good place” and lauded her as one of the best politicians in Europe. He said he could not comment on a live police investigation when asked about Operation Branchform.
Ms Sturgeon has previously denied that the reason she suddenly announced in February she was quitting was related to the investigation into the SNP’s finances, which had been rumbling on in the background since 2021. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.
Labour’s shadow secretary of state for Scotland, Ian Murray, said the SNP’s finances were “an appalling scandal” and he criticised the party’s handling of it.
The issue appears to have damaged the SNP’s position in the polls, leading to suggestions that Labour could take almost half the party’s 45 Westminster seats at elections next year.
Support among the Scottish electorate for SNP’s core issue of independence remains at close to 50 per cent.
