Nicola Sturgeon spent seven hours in custody after her arrest in connection with a police investigation into SNP finances. Photo: Jane Barlow/PA
Nicola Sturgeon proudly tweeted over Saturday lunchtime that she had passed her driving theory test, which was rare good news for the former First Minister of Scotland.
That would be welcome recognition. distraction from the events that have dominated her life in recent months, but it should have been short-lived.
Step one completed ✔️ 🚘 pic.twitter.com/FG6KDJuXgQ< /p>— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) June 10, 2023
Just a day later, she was taken into custody for questioning as the six-year SNP finance saga ended with her arrest.
Just over two months ago, her home was being considered a potential crime scene when she was ransacked by police following the arrest of her husband, Peter Murrell, former chief executive of the Scottish National Party.
A striking depiction of a C.S.I.-style forensic tent. the house threw a veil over their lives, which never dissipated.
The police are thoroughly searching Ms. Sturgeon's house. development increases the malaise that grips his party.
For a man who staked on his leadership as a candidate for the Sturgeon succession, the arrest of his great hero is extremely unfortunate.
>Operation Branchform, the Scottish Police investigation into the finances of the SNP, began in 2021, but the events it investigates have their origins in 2017 and the ambitious plan to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Losing “the once vote for a generation” on the future of the Union in 2014. Sturgeon saw the 2016 Brexit vote, in which Scotland voted to stay in the EU, as an opportunity to vote again.
On March 3, 2017, she announced a plan to hold a second independence referendum. Mr Murrell, who has been SNP's chief executive since 1999, launched an online fundraiser called Ref.scot with the goal of raising £1 million.
The site popularized the hashtag #ScotRef and Ms Sturgeon recorded a video message. a call for supporters to sign a pledge to “support the Scottish referendum”.
Of course, IndyRef2 never took place and the fundraiser closed after only three months.
In 2019, a second site was launched, Yes.Scot, which was described as “an exciting new portal to independence”. Donations to this eventually raised the total raised for the new campaign to £666,953.
Installation questions
Questions began to be asked about what happened to the money that had been donated to the IndyRef2 campaign fund. Some donors demanded their money back when the referendum turned out to be a pipe dream, including lottery winner Colin Weir, who won the £161 million EuroMillions jackpot with his wife and was reported to have filed a party complaint before his death in December 2019. .
By the end of 2019, the party had only £97,000 in the bank, but insisted that £600,000 could be channeled “at any moment”.
The state of the party's finances became public for the first time in 2020 via the Wings Over Scotland online blog.
As the number of questions grew, more and more attention was paid to Mr. Murrell. Was the money raised to finance the second referendum campaign spent on something else?
In addition to financial issues, the party split after the trial of Alex Salmond, when 12 charges were dropped against the former leader of the SNP, including attempted rape.
Mr Salmond created his own Independence Party, Alba, March 2021. In the same month, activist Sean Clerkin filed a fraud complaint with police in Scotland. Despite a successful election to Holyrood in May of that year, SNP Westminster MP Douglas Chapman resigned as Treasurer after just three weeks, citing a lack of financial transparency.
Two days later, another MP, Joanna Cherry K .S., left the party's National Executive Committee, citing similar concerns. Ms Sturgeon said she was “not worried” about finances.
Amid growing anger from party members, the SNP ruling body discussed the Indyref2 fund.
The party said that £51,570 £666,953 was spent, but it was promised that the equivalent amount would be used to campaign for independence when needed.
Mr Murrell loaned £107,620 to the SNP sterling for “cash flow assistance”, but this was not announced to the Electoral Commission until a year later – the first time the SNP was late in making such a disclosure since taking office in 2007.
Operation Branchform was launched in July 2021, but not a single witness was interviewed until 2023.
The investigation reportedly focused on about five transactions made while Mr. Murrell was still the party's chief executive, including at least one related to the purchase of a car.
While at the beginning this year, with a police investigation in the background, events at the top of the SNP were about to take a dramatic turn.
On February 15, Ms Sturgeon caught Scottish politicians by surprise by announcing she was resigning.
She said she no longer had the stamina to continue, although by then several party members, including Mr. Chapman, had been contacted.
During a press conference at Bute House, she was asked if she expected that she will be interrogated in connection with the investigation. She said no.
A month later, Murray Foote, SNP's head of public relations, resigned due to a dispute over the number of members. He denied media reports, which later turned out to be true, that the SNP had lost 30,000 members.
The National Executive Committee accused Mr. Murrell of misinforming Mr. Foote, and the next day, March 18, he resigned “with immediate effect” ahead of a vote of no confidence, admitting that he was to blame for the misleading figures. .
Mr. Murrell, 58, said his future was a “distraction” from the competition to choose a new leader.
March 27, Mr. Yusuf was narrowly elected to the seat of Mr. -Miss Sturgeon, to whom he was invariably loyal during the struggle for leadership.
But just a week later, on April 5, his opponents rioted after Mr Murrell was arrested at his family home in Wuddington, Lanarkshire, and the SNP offices in Edinburgh were ransacked.< /p>
Ms Sturgeon insisted she had “no prior knowledge” of police plans to arrest her husband. However, supporters of Kate Forbes, a woman who came within four percentage points of beating Yusuf, openly questioned the timing of Ms Sturgeon's resignation, asking if she at least suspected an imminent arrest and if she wanted to make sure that her preferred successor was in place before the knock on the door.
There were also questions for Sir Ian Livingston, Chief Constable of the Scottish Police, who visited the Scottish Parliament six days before Ms Sturgeon announced her resignation.
Scottish Police said he was there for a “routine” visit to the then Scottish Attorney General, but did not say if Branchform was discussed.
Asked to summarize his reaction on hearing of Mr. Murrell's arrest, Mr. Yousaf said: “My reaction, as you can imagine, like everyone involved in the SNP, is that this is a difficult day for the party.”
Things then took a strange turn when a £110,000 van was confiscated at Mr Murrell's mother's home in Dunfermline.
The SNP said the car was bought for a campaign, but later revealed it was never insured after the purchase in 2021, raising more questions about what exactly it was for.
It was also reported that police were investigating SNP purchases of luxury pens, designer pots and pans, jewelry, and a fridge-freezer, as well as looking for so-called “standalone” phones — cheap, pre-paid devices that users can throw away or destroy when they are no longer needed. required if they want to maintain confidentiality.
Mr Yusuf was inevitably faced with repeated questions about what he knew about cases being investigated by the police.
He said he had no idea the SNP owned the camper until he was elected leader, but his attempts to continue in Scotland were inevitably hampered by repeated questioning of journalists after each new event. .
On April 18, Colin Beatty, SNP Treasurer, was arrested and questioned, meaning that Ms. Sturgeon was the only one of the three signatories of the SNP accounts who were not questioned.
Mr. Beatty left ” with immediate effect” after his arrest and was replaced by Stuart Macdonald MP, who represents Cumbernold, Kirkintilloch and Keelsyte. He acknowledged that it would be a “hard and challenging time” for the party.
It seemed likely that the police would want to talk to Ms Sturgeon, but nearly two months went by with no new arrests.
On Sunday morning, Mr. Yousaf felt the dust had settled enough to give an interview on the BBC's Sunday program with Laura Kuensberg, where he spoke tough about independence.
Inevitably, he was also asked about Operation Branchform , to which he said he could not comment, but insisted that support for independence was still “solid”.
He also said that he had recently spoken to Ms Sturgeon and said that she “in a good location and goes above and beyond.” good.
He continued: “Why don't I consult with perhaps one of the best politicians, the most impressive politicians that Europe has seen in the last couple of decades?”
It was her successor, Humza Yusuf, talking about Nicola Sturgeon on Friday — it was 'tough and traumatic' but she's doing well, he said 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/0zgDZkCZs2
— Laura Kuensberg (@bbclaurak) June 11, 2023
Mr. Yusaf's loyalty has never been questioned, but his timing leaves a lot to be desired.
Just nine minutes after the Kuensberg show ended, Ms. Sturgeon was formally arrested by police in Scotland, who announced that a “52-year-old woman” was being held “as a suspect” in an investigation into SNP finance and funding.
STATEMENT pic .twitter.com/MlpWJGzwi0
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) June 11, 2023
After more than seven hours of detention, at 5:24 p.m., she was “released without charge pending further investigation”, as was done by Mr. Murrell and Mr. -Mr Beatty up to her.
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