THE SNP is going through a difficult “period of change and transition”, Humza Yousaf has said, after the party’s former chief executive was arrested. 

The First Minister said recent weeks had “not been easy” for his party, and urged members not to “lose sight of the strength we have”. 

Writing in the Herald’s sister paper, The National, Mr Yousaf also insisted the SNP would, as in the past, prove its critics wrong and deliver independence.

His intervention comes after weeks of unprecedented turmoil in the SNP unleashed by Nicola Sturgeon announcing her resignation plans in mid-February.

That led to a brutal leadership contest in which Mr Yousaf was attacked by his rivals, and only scraped home against his main challenger, Kate Forbes, by 52 to 48 per cent.

SNP HQ dishonesty over a slump in the party’s membership also saw Holyrood communications boss Murray Foote resign after being misled by his own colleagues.

Chief executive Peter Murrell, who is married to Ms Sturgeon, quit the next day.

READ MORE: SNP is 'not paying Peter Murrell's legal fees' amid police fraud probe

Last Wednesday police arrested and questioned Mr Murrell as part of a long-running inquiry into a possible SNP fundraising fraud, before releasing him without charge.

Officers also spent two days searching the Glasgow house shared by Mr Murrell and Ms Sturgeon, and seized a luxury £110,000 motorhome from outside the home of Mr Murrelll’s widowed 92-year-old mother in Dunfermline.

Since July 2021, the force has been investigating whether £660,000 raised by the SNP specifically to fight a second referendum campaign has been spent on other things.

Ms Forbes’s campaign manager, MSP Michelle Thomson, today said party members were “dismayed and quite shocked” by the police probe.

At the weekend, SNP president Michael Russell told the Herald the party was facing its biggest crisis in his 50-year association with it.

In an extraordinary admission, the former constitution secretary said the SNP was currently unable to deliver independence, and didn’t know how to do it.

“What the independence movement is trying to do is uniquely difficult - to bring a mature democracy to independence in the first part of the 21st century with all the entanglements that exist and we haven’t worked out how to do it yet,” he said. 

READ MORE: 'I don’t think Scottish independence can be secured right now'

Mr Yousaf was more upbeat in his article in the National, although his formula for winning independence was the hackneyed appeal to “roll up our sleeves and get on with it”.

He said: “While there’s no doubting that the past few weeks have not been easy for the SNP, we must not lose sight of the strength we have as a party. 

“That strength ultimately comes from the trust the Scottish people continue to put in us – because we are united in delivering on what matters to them.

“A demonstration of that trust is the fact we are the largest political party in Scotland by quite some distance. Other political parties don’t regularly publish their membership figures, but I would be fairly confident in saying we are bigger than all the others combined.”

He went on: “Our party is of course currently going through a period of change and transition, and such periods can be difficult. 

“I recognise that, but we should take heart in just how far we have come as a movement, and not lose faith that together, we can take the final steps towards independence.

“This is a critical time for our party, our movement and country. The SNP are the largest political party in Scotland, and we retain popular support whilst having been in government for almost 16 years. Support for independence remains steady at around 50%. When I first joined the party, support for independence was at 30% on a good day.

 

“Despite the difficulties of the past weeks, there is not a party in the land that doesn’t look at our support in the polls, or our membership numbers, with envy – the levels of support we enjoy would have scarcely been believable when my father joined the SNP almost 50 years ago.”

Pushing back on Unionist claims that the SNP is headed for disaster, the First Minister concluded: “Since we came to power in 2007, not a week has gone by where our political opponents haven’t announced the imminent demise of the SNP. In election after election, we have proven them wrong.

“By harnessing the talents of our party – our activists, our councillors and our parliamentarians – we will continue to prove them wrong as we take the decisive steps on our journey to independence and realising Scotland’s full potential.

“The elected Scottish Parliament has a clear majority in favour of offering the people of Scotland a choice over their future, and I am more convinced than ever that we will choose independence. It’s time to embrace the challenge, roll up our sleeves and get on with it.”