Scotland’s First Minister has said his party is safe for whistleblowers despite accusations those who raised concerns about the SNP’s finances were ostracised.
Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and the ex-husband of Nicola Sturgeon, last week admitted embezzling more than £400,000 of party funds to buy scores of personal items.
The long-running police probe which eventually snared Murrell – known as Operation Branchform – was sparked by complaints about the use of £600,000 in crowdfunded cash purportedly raised to fight an independence referendum.
A number of people who raised concerns about the party’s finances, including former MP-turned outspoken SNP leadership critic Joanna Cherry, have said they were “demonised”.
But speaking to the Press Association on Wednesday, First Minister John Swinney said the party is safe for whistleblowers to come forward.
“Yes, I promised when I became SNP leader I would preside over an open and transparent culture within the SNP, and that affects everything,” he said.
Mr Swinney went on to point to the debate on his party’s independence strategy held at its annual conference last year.
“Nobody was ostracised, nobody was demonised for what they said,” he said.
“People were respected for having different opinions and, actually, those people who had different opinions, I saw them working really hard during the election campaign and I warmly welcome their participation despite their taking different views to the ones I expressed.”
Pressed on whether there are processes in place for issues to be raised within the party, he added: “Of course people can do that and their concerns and their issues will be taken seriously.”
A narrative hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday exposed more of Murrell’s actions while in the senior echelons of the SNP, including using fake invoices and false expenses to buy luxury items.
He spent more than £1,000 on candles, a £3,070 robotic lawnmower he claimed as “legal fees”, and made a number of substantial payments for the now infamous £124,550 campervan seized from his mother’s house.
Murrell’s appointment as SNP chief executive came in 2001, when Mr Swinney was in his first stint as party leader.
The First Minister said there was nothing he knew at the time that would have “influenced” the decision of the hiring panel.
“It was a panel decision that was taken by the party the best part of 25 years ago,” he said.
“Obviously, what has happened since then has been the delivery of criminal behaviour and the circumventing of robust systems that should have been able to withstand this, but those systems were undermined by Peter Murrell himself.
“The steps I’ve got to take is to make sure that the SNP is a well-governed institution, and that’s exactly what it is.”
