Operation Branchform

Template:Nicola Sturgeon sidebar Operation Branchform is a Police Scotland investigation into possible fundraising fraud in the Scottish National Party (SNP) that was launched in 2021 and was still ongoing as of June 2023. It has seen the arrest of former SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell and current SNP Treasurer Colin Beattie in April 2023, and former SNP Leader and First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, in June 2023, all of whom were released without charge pending further investigations.

Investigation

An investigation code-named Operation Branchform was started by Police Scotland in 2021. The investigation was into whether £666,953 raised since 2017 specifically to campaign for independence in a proposed second Scottish independence referendum was in part improperly spent by the SNP on other activities. The SNP denies any wrongdoing. The police have also been asked to look at a loan of £107,620 made in June 2021 by Peter Murrell, the SNP's chief executive at the time and husband to Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP's party leader and First Minister of Scotland at the time, after a party meeting discussed the funding being looked at by the police. The loan was reported late to the Electoral Commission. There were calls for Murrell to stand down because of the investigation.

History

Background

Fundraising for a proposed second Scottish independence referendum by the SNP began in 2017. A snap general election then took place that year. A Labour Party Member of the Scottish Parliament, James Kelly, asked the Electoral Commission to investigate whether the SNP had spent this money on campaigning in the general election. The SNP denied this, saying the money raised was ring-fenced for a future referendum campaign.

A second fundraiser followed in April 2019. This fundraiser also claimed to be ring-fencing donations for a specific purpose, saying "Our plan is to distribute An Independent Scotland: Household Guide to every household – all 2,460,000 of them! To achieve that, I am asking you to join me in making a donation to this specific project".

In January 2020, the pro-independence blogger Stuart Campbell, through his website Wings Over Scotland, claimed that the SNP's published accounts for 2018 did not contain enough money to cover the ring-fenced sums that were said to have been raised.

In October 2020, the Electoral Commission published the SNP's 2019 accounts. These did not list the referendum campaign funds separately and showed that the money the SNP had to hand, around £97,000, was again much less than the amount that was said to be ring-fenced. However, the SNP's then treasurer, Colin Beattie, said that there was £593,501 in the "Referendum Appeal Fund" that was ready to be deployed "instantaneously".

In the 2020 SNP internal elections, Douglas Chapman was elected as SNP National Treasurer, replacing Beattie.

On 20 March 2021, three members of the SNP's Finance and Audit Committee (Cllr Frank Ross, Cynthia Guthrie and Allison Graham) resigned over a lack of access to party accounts. As a result, political activist Sean Clerkin made a complaint to Police Scotland about the allegedly missing funds in March 2021.

In May 2021, Douglas Chapman also resigned as SNP National Treasurer, saying he "had not received the support or financial information required to carry out the fiduciary duties of National Treasurer". Nicola Sturgeon, Murrell's wife and then party leader, took over as acting treasurer, with Electoral Commission rules requiring someone to be in the post at all times. MP Joanna Cherry then resigned from the NEC later that month, saying on Twitter, "A number of factors have prevented me from fulfilling the mandate party members gave me to improve transparency & scrutiny & to uphold the party’s constitution. I won’t be making any further comment at this stage".

Beattie was appointed as Treasurer in June 2021. After a SNP NEC meeting that month, Beattie said £666,953 had been raised through referendum-related fundraisers from 2017 to 2020, and that £51,760 had been spent directly on campaigning for another referendum. He said funds were "earmarked" for that purpose, and "amounts equivalent to the sums raised" would be spent on "the intended purpose".

Police investigation started

The police investigation was launched in July 2021 following seven complaints.

In August 2021, Sturgeon told a meeting of the party’s NEC that, "We don’t need to talk about the finances. The finances are absolutely fine".

In 2022, a peer-review of the operation was conducted by the National Crime Agency, which the police described as normal "good practice".

In December 2022, Wings Over Scotland reported that a loan of £107,620 made to the SNP in June 2021 had come from the party's then-CEO Peter Murrell, and that the Electoral Commission had not been informed until over a year later, in August 2022, despite this being a breach of the Commission's reporting rules. The stated reason for the loan was to assist with the party's cash-flow after the Scottish Parliament election in May 2021, although by April 2023 the majority of the loan had not been repaid, with £60,000 still outstanding.

In February 2023, it was reported that the police planned to speak to key witnesses within the party.

Peter Murrell arrested

On 5 April 2023, Murrell, by this time no longer the SNP's chief executive, was arrested by Police Scotland in connection with the investigation, with the police saying they were conducting searches at a number of addresses. The police searched Murrell and Sturgeon's private residence in Glasgow, including the garden, and were also at the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh. After questioning, Murrell was released without charge pending further investigation. A Niesmann + Bischoff motorhome, with a sales cost of around £110,000, was subsequently seized from the home of Peter Murrell's mother in Fife as part of the investigation. Beattie said he did not know about the purchase of the motorhome at the time.

It was announced in early April, after Murrell’s arrest, that accountants Johnston Carmichael had resigned from auditing the SNP’s finances (both for the central party and the Westminster Parliamentary group), after over a decade working with the party. It later emerged that they had done so "around October" 2022, according to Humza Yousaf, the new leader of the SNP, who also said he was unaware that the party was without auditors until he took office. The news of their departure was kept from the party’s NEC. Over £1 million of Short Money, public funds payable to the SNP group in Parliament, was at risk if the SNP did not produce audited accounts for the group by 31 May 2023. It was announced on 3 May 2023 that the SNP had appointed new auditors, the AMS Accountants Group in Manchester, over six months after the previous auditors had resigned. The SNP Westminster Group ultimately submitted their audited accounts before the 31 May 2023 deadline.

Legal costs from the investigation were reported to have contributed to the SNP having financial difficulties by April 2023.

On 18 April 2023, Colin Beattie was arrested in connection with the investigation. He was released without charge pending further investigation later the same day. He resigned as party treasurer the next day. MP Stuart McDonald was appointed as the new treasurer.

Nicola Sturgeon arrested

Sturgeon was arrested on 11 June 2023. Later that day, she was released without charge. Some SNP politicians, including Ash Regan MSP, called for Sturgeon to be suspended from the party, but new leader Humza Yousaf said he would not suspend her as she had not been charged.

In July, the police said the operation had grown beyond the initial allegation of fraud and would now look at potential embezzlement and the misuse of funds.

See also

• 2023 Scottish National Party leadership election