Joanna Cherry has called for John Swinney to be replaced as Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the SNP.
The former SNP MP, who is no longer a member of the party, made the comments after former party chief executive Peter Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 of party funds.
Speaking to reporters, Ms Cherry said she and others had raised concerns about the party’s finances but were criticised by then leader Nicola Sturgeon, who was married to Mr Murrell at the time, “and her lackeys” and described as “traitors”.
Ms Cherry said Transport Secretary Stephen Flynn should replace Mr Swinney as leader.
The former politician, who lost her seat in 2024, said she did not believe Mr Swinney would be able to make the changes required within the SNP and said the party needed a new leader “who will break with the past”.
She said: “I think if the party is to advance and if the cause of independence is to advance, somebody needs to address what went on during the Sturgeon years and distance the modern SNP from that.
“John Swinney has proven himself incapable of doing that and so I’d like to see a new leader.
“I don’t think (Education Secretary) Mairi McAllan is up to the job, and I think she’s just a Nicola Sturgeon place person. I’d like to see Stephen Flynn in the job.”
Ms Cherry urged Mr Swinney to apologise to the SNP members who had their money stolen and not “paint the SNP or Nicola Sturgeon as a victim”.
“Recognise the true victims,” she said, “many of the ordinary decent working-class people who donated small amounts of money to the party because they believed it would be spent on independence”.
Ms Cherry said those who questioned the party’s finances, including her, were also owed an apology as she urged Mr Swinney to set up an independent inquiry.
The former MP said the party leadership shut down those who raised concerns about finances during meetings of the SNP’s national executive committee (NEC) during lockdown.
She said: “We were told that we were deliberately trying to undermine the party and undermine Nicola’s leadership, and then quite frequently thereafter we would find the social media dogs set upon us.”
In April 2023, a leaked video showed Ms Sturgeon playing down worries about the party’s finances.
The clip of an NEC meeting, from March 2021, showed Ms Sturgeon urged those on the call to be “very careful”, suggesting there were issues with party finances, saying they had never been stronger.
That meeting took place days before the first complaint around SNP finances was made to Police Scotland, with the force formally beginning its investigation in July of that year.
Ms Cherry said she was “very angry and upset about what has happened”, adding: “I was deeply suspicious about what her husband was up to, but I never imagined it would amount to (such) serious and grave crimes as this.
“I tried to ask questions about it. I was treated appallingly, and I saw other women and men also treated appallingly. So, I’m quite emotional about it.”
Murrell, 61, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh to embezzling £400,310.65 from the SNP between 2010 and 2022.
He has admitted using the SNP’s money to buy items, including a motorhome and luxury goods, and towards the purchase of two cars.
The former party boss was first arrested in April 2023 as part of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances and was charged in April 2024.
The First Minister has apologised to SNP members as he said the “level of personal horror” he felt over Murrell’s crimes was “difficult for me to properly convey”.
Describing it as being a “tough day” for the party, Mr Swinney said bluntly: “I am gutted by this today.”
The SNP leader said the money had been “stolen” from the party and accused the former chief executive of “whole-scale deception”.
“It is the conduct of Peter Murrell that has got us into that position,” the First Minister said, making clear the former chief executive was “exclusively responsible” for what had happened.
