EXCLUSIVE
Tom Gordon
THE Ayrshire lottery winners Colin and Christine Weir loaned the SNP £1million to help the party get through the general election, it has emerged.
The couple, who won £161m on the Euromillions draw in 2011, each made an interest-free loan of £500,000 to the SNP in late March, new Electoral Commission records reveal.
The money was on top of £1m in cash which the couple donated to the SNP the same day.
Both loans are due to be repaid by the end of July.
Since their lottery win, the Weirs have become the SNP's single biggest source of income.
The couple have each donated £2m since September 2011, with the first money given just four days after they took tea with then First Minister Alex Salmond at Bute House.
The couple were also the main funders of the Yes Scotland campaign, jointly giving £3.5m, prompting critics to claim the organisation was not the grassroots effort it claimed.
The Sunday Herald recently revealed that Yes Scotland had to be bailed out by the SNP with £825,000 at the end of the referendum, when it needed to pay its bills.
With their March 24 loans, the Weirs are now also the biggest lenders to the SNP, accounting for 86% of the party's borrowing.
The SNP refused to say whether this marked a shift from donations to loans by the Weirs.
Colin Weir, a former TV cameraman, was an SNP general election candidate in Ayr in 1987.
An SNP spokeswoman said: "We thank all of our donors - big and small. This financial support can and does take different forms at different times, and we are enormously grateful to all those who have helped make the SNP the dynamic political force it has become."
The Weirs' PR agency refused to comment.
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