Sturgeon arrested in probe into SNP finances

Police arrested Nicola Sturgeon on Sunday in a widening investigation into the finances of the Scottish National party that has plunged the pro-independence movement into turmoil.

The arrest and questioning of the former SNP leader and Scottish first minister — who was later released without charge pending further investigations — mark a big escalation in the probe.

In a statement on Twitter made after her release, Sturgeon said: “I know beyond doubt that I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”

The investigation has shaken the pro-independence SNP, which has dominated Scottish politics since taking power of the devolved government in 2007 but has been torn by divisions in the wake of Sturgeon’s shock resignation announcement in February.

The party’s travails — compounded by problems on issues ranging from island ferries to recycling rules — have put it on the back foot as it prepares for a UK general election next year and tries to revive its stalled independence drive.

“It’s a bad day for the SNP, with the support for the party having already fallen” due to the crises that have engulfed it in recent months, said Mark Diffley, founder of The Diffley Partnership, an Edinburgh-based polling company. “The worry for them is that this will further that decline.”

Sturgeon’s arrest will be seized on by the party’s unionist opponents, which are seeking to break the SNP’s stranglehold on Scottish politics in the general election. The Labour party, whose support has risen sharply in the polls in the last year, is hoping to win as many as 20 Scottish seats.

It is also a blow for Sturgeon’s successor, Humza Yousaf, in his attempts to stabilise the SNP after a succession battle that exposed the deep divisions within the party.

Police Scotland, the national force, said it had arrested a 52-year-old woman on Sunday in connection with its investigation, who was questioned by detectives.

The force launched an investigation into the SNP’s finances in 2021 after complaints from donors who claimed more than £600,000 donated to the party during special independence referendum fundraising appeals in 2017 and 2019 had been spent on other things.

A spokesperson for Sturgeon said the former first minister attended “by arrangement” an interview with Police Scotland to be arrested and questioned in relation to the investigation, known as Operation Branchform.

“Nicola has consistently said she would co-operate with the investigation if asked and continues to do so,” the spokesperson added.

Sturgeon, who formally resigned as party leader and first minister in March, is the third person to be arrested in connection with the probe.

The SNP’s former chief executive, Peter Murrell, who is also Sturgeon’s husband, was arrested in April and Colin Beattie, its then treasurer, later that month. Both men were released pending further investigation.

Murrell, who became the SNP’s CEO in 1999 and married Sturgeon in 2010, resigned in March after the party admitted it had about 30,000 fewer members than it claimed after Sturgeon announced her intention to resign as first minister in February and the race to replace her began.

The arrest of Scotland’s longest-serving first minister, and the first woman to hold the job, threatens Sturgeon’s legacy.

During her eight years as first minister she was the foremost figure in Scottish politics and was a thorn in the side of successive UK governments as she pushed for a second independence referendum following the 55-45 per cent defeat in 2014.

Gerry Hassan, a professor at Glasgow Caledonian University who has written on the SNP, said the arrest was a “watershed moment” for the party.

He said the SNP had taken its supporters for granted since winning control of Scotland’s government. “[Sturgeon’s arrest] brings into the open . . . the limits of the SNP’s leadership style,” he said.

Yousaf, who was perceived as the continuity candidate to take the party’s leadership, says he is committed to reforming the SNP. But the legacy of controversies has overshadowed attempts to promote his agenda.

Additional reporting by Jim Pickard