FORMER business minister Ivan McKee has called for Humza Yousaf to clarify the process of dealing with SNP MSPs and MPs who are being investigating by the police and when the party whip is removed.

Mr McKee is the latest SNP parliamentarian to raise concerns of how such cases are handled following Nicola Sturgeon's arrest on Sunday.

The former first minister was questioned by officers for seven hours before being released without charge pending further inquiries. 

Two SNP MSPs - Ash Regan and Michelle Thomson - have called for Ms Sturgeon to resign her party membership while the police probe continues, while one SNP MP Angus MacNeil has said Mr Yousaf should suspend her. 

Mr Yousaf and SNP president Michael Russell have both said as Ms Sturgeon has not been charged with any offence there are no grounds to suspend her party membership.

READ MORE: Humza Yousaf faces growing calls to act after Nicola Sturgeon's arrest

"I am not calling for Humza to suspend Nicola as it is a matter of natural justice, the principle of people are innocent until proven guilty," Mr McKee, the MSP for Glasgow Provan, told The Herald.

"Whatever Nicola does is up to her and I am sure she will think about what is in the best interests of the party. But I am calling for Humza to clarify what the process is and how best these cases are dealt with in general.

"He and Mike Russell have said the process is is that nobody has been charged so nobody will be suspended but if that is the process that [in general] nobody is suspended until they are charged they need to be clear about that."

The Herald:

SNP MSP Ivan McKee wants the First Minister to clarify when a parliamentarian is suspended by the SNP.

Serious rifts have opened up in the SNP after Ms Sturgeon vowed not to step aside from the party after her arrest by police investigating SNP finances and fundraising.

Glasgow Cathcart MSP James Dornan suggested Ms Regan should herself give up her party membership for urging Ms Sturgeon to step aside from the SNP.

Mr Yousaf yesterday said there was no reason for him to suspend his predecessor for being questioned by Operation Branchform detectives because she had been released without charge.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon should resign SNP membership, says Ash Regan

The investigation was launched by Police Scotland after it received multiple complaints over the use of more than £600,000 in donations to the SNP to fight a second independence referendum.

Ms Regan, who was a candidate in the SNP leadership contest, said yesterday: “As a party and as individuals in positions of leadership, we should always strive to uphold the highest standards of integrity and accountability.”

Ms Thomson was one of a series of MPs and MSPs stripped of the SNP whip during Ms Sturgeon’s time in charge, which has prompted growing calls for her to be treated in the same manner.

Mike Russell, the SNP president who said in April that the party faced its biggest crisis in 50 years, warned his own side it was “neither generous nor helpful” to call for Ms Sturgeon’s resignation.

Asked by the BBC if she should quit, he said: “That would be entirely up to her, but I can see no reason why she would wish to do so at the present moment, particularly in the light of the statement that she made yesterday, which I think even her worst enemies would describe as unequivocal in her assertion of innocence.”

Today the SNP's deputy leader backed Mr Yousaf's decision not to suspend the whip from Ms Sturgeon, saying it is in the interests of "natural justice" that she stays in the party.

Keith Brown said other cases where the party's MSPs had been suspended while allegations around them were being investigated involved "different circumstances".

At the weekend Ms Sturgeon became the third figure in the SNP to be arrested and interviewed by detectives in the ongoing investigation into the party's finances.

Like former chief executive Peter Murrell - Ms Sturgeon's husband - and former treasurer Colin Beattie, she was released without charge pending further investigation.

On Tuesday, Mr Brown told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that he "certainly" agreed with Mr Yousaf's decision not to suspend his predecessor as the investigation is ongoing.

He said: "I think it's in the interest of natural justice, which is the principle which Humza, the First Minister, is following."

Mr Brown said Ms Thomson took the decision to remove herself from the SNP group at Westminster.

He said: "There are different circumstances in each of these situations.

"I accept that and that's bound to be the case, but in relation to the current case, Nicola Sturgeon has not been charged - she has not been accused, in fact, of anything.

"The arrest I appreciate is a dramatic thing to have happened.

"It's perhaps not as well understood that arrest is just a way of making sure that the interview and information gathering by the police is put into formal footing."

He also raised the case of Boris Johnson, saying Conservatives had not called for him to be suspended despite being investigated by the police.

The SNP deputy leader said Ms Sturgeon had given a "strong defence" of her own innocence and he was not aware of any complaints being made to the party's member conduct committee.