Can the SNP ever recover from Peter Murrell scandal?

Murrell walked into the High Court of Edinburgh around 8.30am on Monday morning, dressed smartly in a suit and tie. He looked calm. In his hand was an overnight bag, an early indication of his fate.

Around an hour and a half later, his lawyer, John Scullion KC, entered a plea on his behalf: guilty to an amended indictment of embezzling £400,310 from the SNP.

His connections to the party run deep as he led them as chief executive for more than 20 years. In the late-2000s to mid-2010s, Murrell is credited with much of the SNP’s success.

He is part of the mould that made the SNP an election winning machine. But now, he is part of an inescapable problem that has plagued the party for years.

I sat behind Murrell in the High Court of Edinburgh as the guilty plea was entered. He did not flinch when Lord Young, the judge presiding over the case, told him he had committed a “gross breach of trust”.

Many of us in the press pack had expected a guilty plea. It seemed inevitable. But few of us had imagined the bewilderment of watching Murrell being handcuffed and escorted to the cells.

The real astonishment is the scale of offending.

Everyone knew about the £124,550 luxury motorhome seized by Police Scotland as part of Operation Branchform. The Niesmann+Bischoff iSmove campervan was purchased by Murrell in 2020 and brought 300 miles from Staffordshire to his elderly mother’s home in Dunfermline.

That motorhome, and the blue forensic tent erected outside Murrell’s home in April 2023, have become the images associated with the SNP finance probe.

But what people did not know was just how much Murrell purchased over the 12 year period.

Within the updated indictment, there are luxury purchases of a £3,192 tea set and vanity bureau, premium wine accessories costing £3,500. There are luxury watches, coffee machines, multiple soup kettles and a staggering £795 knife block and £268.20 on a matching knife set.

Murrell purchased Waterford Aran vases totalling £1,174, an expensive telescope, and he bought luxury cars.

Police Scotland said Murrell "abused his privileged position" to fund a lifestyle he could not afford.

To those who knew him, Murrell was not a flashy man. To them, he was quick witted and kind. The man in the court room was unrecognisable to the senior SNP sources I spoke to after the hearing.

So what on earth happened?

Murrell became SNP chief executive in 2001, under the leadership of John Swinney.

Mr Swinney, now the First Minister, faced difficult questions during a press conference arranged following Murrell's plea.

There, he told journalists that Murrell was "exclusively responsible for his behaviour".

He is right. Murrell is the only person charged as part of Operation Branchform.

First Minister John Swinney speaking during a press conference at the Edinburgh Marriott Hotel Holyrood, after former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been remanded into custody. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

Nicola Sturgeon, the estranged wife of Murrell and former party leader, was cleared of all wrongdoing following a lengthy police investigation, as was Colin Beattie, the former SNP treasurer.

Murrell is the only person who should face punishment for his crimes. He is the one who broke the trust of thousands of SNP members.

But that does not mean there are not going to be difficult questions to answer.

When details of Murrell's offending, and the scale of his spending, emerged in the media, people speculated how anyone close to Murrell could not have known about his spending.

Ms Sturgeon hit back at those allegations, vehemently denying she had any knowledge or suspicion about her husbands actions.

She said: "I was cleared of any wrongdoing after a lengthy and thorough investigation.

"In relation to many of the items in question for example expensive watches and games consoles, I was not aware of them having been purchased at all. 

"Indeed in relation to the item of largest value – a campervan – I was not aware of its existence until it featured in the police investigation in early 2023, nor was it parked in our driveway as has been claimed by some."

The former first minister, who quit Holyrood this year, said she "had no reason to doubt that he had used his own money".

Ms Sturgeon and her husband were a dominant force in UK politics, and regarded as a power couple.

Both earned significant salaries, with Murrell's annual take at least £79,750.

That, Ms Sturgeon said, led her not to question what he spent his money on.

"We were both earning high salaries and, due to the responsibilities of my job, rarely socialised or went on holidays. We had separate bank accounts and I had no access to his financial records.”

In 2021, Ms Sturgeon, in her capacity as SNP leader, provided assurances to the SNP's ruling body over financial concerns. She told them: "There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party's finances".

Where there are questions for the SNP, though, is why it was considered appropriate for a married couple to yield so much power over a political party.

Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell (left) arriving at Edinburgh High Court. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

Many within the party, including Ms Sturgeon's former mentor Alex Salmond, raised concerns about one household holding so much political heft.

For Mr Swinney, the man who appointed Murrell, who knew what, and when, were the unavoidable questions.

Mr Swinney told us there had been a "terrible breach of trust and an overwhelming betrayal by the man entrusted to be the party's chief executive".

Since becoming leader again in 2024, Mr Swinney insists he has restored the trust within the SNP, adding he was "resolute" about the future after he strengthened "government structures and party finances".

Asked by journalists whether he could have done more to stop Murrell while leading the SNP between 2000 and 2004, Mr Swinney rejected that assertion.

"It is the criminality of Peter Murrell that has given rise to the situation we find ourselves in today."

Murrell's offending took place between 2010 and 2023, outside of Mr Swinney's leadership but the two were close friends.

There was a sadness to the First Minister as he reflected on Murrell's crimes. At one point, he barely held it together.

(Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

In his own words, Mr Swinney was one of the victims who had donated cash to the party he loves to help campaign for a second referendum.

"The level of personal horror, betrayal that I feel is difficult for me to properly convey to you," he told us.

"What I've not been able to stop thinking about is the decent people who have stood with me at coffee morning and jumbo sales and thrift shops raising the money, paying their money to party headquarters, paying their memberships.

"People I know who don't have much money to rub together but have paid their membership subs to keep the SNP afloat because they believe in independence."

Mr Swinney was asked - repeatedly - to apologise to the victims of the SNP after Murrell was placed in a position of power.

After being pressed again by The Herald, he said: "I am sorry to people who are affected, I’m quite happy to say that.

"But my point is the person responsible for this is Peter Murrell, it's not my conduct that got to this - it's Peter Murrell’s.

"If it helps, I'll say sorry to everyone involved."

There was, too, an anger. Mr Swinney could not fathom how someone who loved the party could steal from it, and in doing so, almost ruin it.

There has been some discussion over whether senior figures within the SNP were really shocked by this.

Of course, this has been a long-running saga. Police Scotland launched Operation Branchform in 2021 following complaints from party members. And Murrell was charged in April 2024, so this case has been coming for a long time.

My sense? The shock is real.

What it comes down to is trust. Murrell was not just an ordinary party member. He was the man at the heart of the SNP for more than two decades.

His connection to the party dates back even further and it is almost impossible to find a senior figure within the party who has not rubbed shoulders with the former chief executive.

But it is that position of power and trust that he used to his benefit, to con his party out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

(Image: PA)

The problem is that because of Murrell's popularity and reputation within the SNP, it is entirely plausible that no one looked twice.

It is the success Murrell brought to the SNP which makes this such a big sting for the party. They cannot, even if they tried, erase him from their fabric.

The SNP will never escape questions over who knew what and when and for the thousands of people who donated, they may never get the answers they seek.

But the challenge is whether the SNP can convince SNP loyalists that it has learned from its mistakes.

On Tuesday, MSPs gather in the Scottish Parliament to vote on whether Scotland should have a second independence referendum. The vote will not mean anything in law. That is for the UK Government to determine.

It will pass, with a pro-independence majority in Holyrood and when it does, the SNP has a real fight on its hands to convince people to donate money to their cause again.