Arrests, a luxury motorhome and a power couple’s fall: The inside story of SNP police probe
The once “untouchable” SNP is enduring humiliation amid its biggest crisis in decades.
The governing party of Scotland has been tearing itself apart in recent months as its finances come under the spotlight.
Polls have plummeted, arrests have been made, suspects detained, and a luxury motorhome seized as a long-running police investigation picks up pace.
But what is going on?
The SNP is a powerful political operation. It is seen as the dominant face of the Scottish independence cause, and with that position comes cash.
Large numbers of people are willing to donate and become paid-up members of a party they hope and believe will deliver their dream.
The SNP, under Nicola Sturgeon’s watch, boasted of soaring membership figures. It peaked at more than 100,000 – solidifying it as the third largest in the UK.
There was a sense for a long time the SNP hierarchy was untouchable.
The Sturgeon iron-fist operation rarely led to dissent and internal squabbles never really played out in public. The first minister was known for her discipline, but some argued she ran the party on a “need to know” basis where critics who disagreed were quickly side-lined.
Salmond’s ‘wouldn’t end well’ warning
This is a tale of a political power couple. The two at the top of the SNP were married. Ms Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell was the chief executive since 1999.
Former first minister Alex Salmond told me in recent months he warned the pair that the relationship would not work professionally and wouldn’t end well.
Politically, under Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell, the SNP was an election-winning machine.
Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell were at the top of the SNP
The pair won every election in Scotland in the 3,000 days they worked together. But they failed to achieve their main mission of securing Scotland’s independence.
Many raised concerns about too few people making all the decisions. Others questioned their strategy and what was really going on behind closed doors.
To appease the SNP faithful, Ms Sturgeon would issue a rallying cry every few years about “kick-staring” the drive towards a second referendum vote.
Where had the money had gone?
The party raised £666,953 through various appeals between 2017 and 2020, saying they would spend the funds on an indyref2 campaign.
But in the subsequent years, audited financial accounts issued via the Electoral Commission revealed a party with far less cash in the bank.
Some supporters had queries after accounts showed it had just under £97,000 in the bank at the end of 2019, and total net assets of about £272,000.
The people who had donated raised concerns about where the rest of the money had gone.
A leaked video of Ms Sturgeon taken in 2021 at a meeting of the SNP’s ruling body appears to show her warning NEC members to be “very careful” about suggesting there were “any problems” with the accounts.
In what looked like an angry exchange, she said: “There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances, and all of us need to be careful about not suggesting that there is.”
Around the same time, the SNP’s national treasurer quit – claiming he was not given enough information to do the job.
Douglas Chapman, the MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, resigned after only being in post for a few months.
It was reported at the time that his decision to stand down was linked to a mounting row over the ringfenced independence cash.
Police received formal complaints
Transparency was clearly becoming an issue.
The situation became even more serious for the SNP around that same period when formal complaints were received by Police Scotland.
Detectives began probing fundraising and finances and launched Operation Branchform.
In June 2022, Mr Murrell provided a personal loan of £107,620 to the SNP to help with “cashflow” problems.
His wife then faced awkward questions when the news became public.
She claimed she couldn’t “recall” when she first heard about this large loan involving her partner. The first minister looked uncomfortable and attempted to swiftly move on. It was an eyebrow-raising episode.
Then came the bombshell resignation from Ms Sturgeon, who declared she no longer had the stamina to continue.
The timing took most people by surprise.
The first minister denied it was related to “short-term pressures” and within weeks began her farewell tour of the television studios, including Sky’s Beth Rigby Interviews and ITV’s Loose Women.
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Ms Sturgeon’s interview with Sky’s Beth Rigby
The SNP suffered a bruising and bitter leadership contest which became mired in mudslinging and controversy.
One of the biggest own goals was the saga surrounding the candidates not being given access to how many members were eligible to vote.
The party had previously denied a newspaper report claiming it had lost 30,000 members in recent years.
After a humiliating climbdown the SNP finally conceded the story was true. Red faces all round.
Amid growing claims of secrecy, which threatened to plunge the leadership race into chaos, Mr Murrell quit as the long-standing boss. His Saturday morning departure overshadowed his wife’s final moments in office.
In the end, Humza Yousaf narrowly defeated Kate Forbes to become Ms Sturgeon’s successor.
His premiership stalled before it even began.
Read more:
Sturgeon and Murrell: The downfall of SNP power couple in less than 150 days
Nicola Sturgeon says SNP crisis beyond her ‘worst nightmares’
Who is at the centre of the police investigation into the SNP?
It quickly became public “the Murrells” had failed to disclose to the new first minister that the party he now leads had been without auditors for its financial files. Accountants, who had worked for the SNP for a decade, quit last year.
Withholding this vital information from so many senior figures in the nationalist ranks caused further embarrassment and added fuel to the fire of “cover-up” claims.
Then came the biggest bombshell of all. Mr Murrell was arrested.
Uniformed officers swarmed the Murrell/Sturgeon house on the outskirts of Glasgow. A white evidence tent was erected on the front lawn.
Police Scotland officers at the home of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell
The search was part of a probe into the SNP’s funding and finances
Detectives released their “suspect” without charge after almost 12 hours of questions. Ms Sturgeon later described this as her “worst nightmare”.
The scenes were unthinkable just a few short months ago. The house of Scotland’s political power couple raided and searched for more than 30 hours.
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Sturgeon: Last few weeks ‘very difficult’
The following day I, and every political journalist in Scotland, were invited to the first minister’s official residence in Edinburgh for a briefing with Mr Yousaf.
We entered the same room where Ms Sturgeon had made that infamous resignation speech a few weeks before.
This time the lectern and rows of chairs were replaced with sofas in a circle with tea, coffee and cakes at the edge of the room.
Mr Yousaf arrived, rolled up his sleeves and answered every question from reporters before camera crews were summoned to record interviews for TV, including Sky News.
This was a far cry from the Sturgeon regime and was clearly a deliberate strategy to send out a signal of resetting relations.
Over the following days, the Sunday newspapers revealed a picture of a large, luxury motorhome being seized by detectives outside of the Fife home of Mr Murrell’s 92-year-old mother. It was thought the vehicle could be worth more than £100,000.
The chaos was set to continue. What on earth did a political party need a campervan for?
First Minister Humza Yousaf didn’t know about the SNP motorhome until he became party leader
I confronted Mr Yousaf about when he became aware the motorhome was an “SNP asset”.
He confirmed it was owned by the party and had been kept in the dark about it until he became leader.
It led to further questions about the extent of the police probe on the party’s finances.
The SNP accounts for 2021 include new “motor vehicles” worth £80,632 after depreciation among the party’s assets. There has been no confirmation whether this figure is a reference to the luxury campervan.
Those accounts were signed off by the national treasurer Colin Beattie.
He became the second “suspect” to be arrested by Police Scotland, two weeks after Mr Murrell.
Mr Beattie, who has overseen the SNP’s finances for almost two decades, was released without charge pending further investigations.
Former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested and later released as part of the police probe
When questioned by reporters, the 71-year-old first said he had no knowledge of the motorhome before later clarifying he was aware.
A bizarre episode in the SNP soap opera.
Mr Yousaf is attempting to get a grip of the party’s governance, but the polls paint a grim picture for his immediate electoral fortunes.
Is that the cost of excessive control by a closed circle run by Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell? Sir Keir Starmer certainly hopes so.
World
Ukraine war: The signs Putin is expecting more conflict, not less – and the frank conversation Keir Starmer needs to have
With more than a thousand troops being killed or wounded every day, there’s no sign that Donald Trump’s push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is reducing the battles on the ground.
Quite the opposite.
Ukraine‘s military chief says Vladimir Putin is instead using the US president‘s focus on peace negotiations as “cover” while Russian soldiers attempt to seize more land.
That means much greater pressure on the Ukrainian frontline, even as Russian and American, or American and Ukrainian, or Ukrainian and European, leaders shake hands and smile for cameras before retreating behind closed doors in Moscow, Alaska, and London.
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This was not an upbeat meeting of Ukraine and its allies
Putin’s not counting on peace
The lack of any indicators that the Kremlin is looking to slow its military machine down also makes the risk of war spreading beyond Ukraine’s borders increasingly likely.
It takes a huge amount of effort, time, and money to put a country on a war footing as Putin has done, partially mobilising his population, allocating huge portions of government spending to the military and realigning Russia’s vast industrial base to produce weapons and ammunition.
Putin has been in India to shore up support from Narendra Modi. Pic: Reuters
But when the fighting stops, it requires almost as much focus and energy to switch a society back to a peace time rhythm.
Deliberately choosing not to dial defence down once the battles cease means a nation will continue to grow its armed forces and weapons stockpiles – a sure sign that it has no intention of being peaceful and is merely having a pause before going on the attack again.
The absence of any preparations by Moscow to slow the tempo of its military operations in Ukraine – where it has more than 710,000 troops deployed along a 780-mile frontline – is perhaps an indicator that Putin is anticipating more not less war.
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What is Putin trying to achieve in India?
How could the war end?
What happens next in Europe will depend on the content of any peace deal on Ukraine.
An all-out Russian defeat is all but impossible to conceive without a significant change of heart by the Trump White House and a massive increase in weapons and support.
The next best result for Ukraine would be a settlement that seeks to strike a fair balance between the warring sides and their conflicting objectives.
This could be done by pausing the fighting along the current line of contact before substantive peace talks then take place, with Ukraine’s sovereignty supported by solid security guarantees from Europe and the US.
But such a move would require Europe’s NATO allies, led by the UK, France and Germany, genuinely to switch their respective militaries and populations back to a wartime footing, with a credible readiness to go to war should Moscow attempt to test their support of Ukraine.
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Why Ukraine’s allies may welcome Trump walking away
Will Starmer level with the public?
That does not just mean increased spending on defence at a much faster rate – in the UK at least – than is currently planned. It is also about the mindset of a country and its willingness to take some pain.
France is already openly saying that parents may have to lose their children in a war with Russia, while Germany is requiring all 18-year-old men to undergo medical checks for possible national service.
No such tough but frank conversation is being attempted by Sir Keir Starmer with the British public.
The furthest his military chief has gone is to say “warfighting readiness” is his top priority.
But that is meaningless jargon for most of the public. Being ready for war is about so much more than what the professional armed forces can do.
Armies fight battles. Countries fight wars.
Read more:
UK unveils undersea tech
Navy chief offers chilling warning
Does Britain’s threat to Russia ring hollow?
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New UK military technology unveiled
Worst case scenario?
The other alternative when it comes to Ukraine is a scenario that sees a sidelined Europe unable to influence the outcome of the negotiations and Kyiv forced to agree to terms that favour Moscow.
This would include the surrender of land in the Donbas that is still under Ukrainian control.
Such a deal – even if tolerated by Ukraine, which is unimaginable without serious unrest – would likely only mean a temporary halt in hostilities until Putin or whoever succeeds him decides to try again to take the rest of Ukraine, or maybe even test NATO’s borders by moving against the Baltic States.
With Trump’s new national security strategy making clear the US would only intervene to defend Europe if such a move is in America’s interests, it is no longer certain that the guarantees contained in NATO’s founding Article 5 principle – that an attack on one member state is an attack on all – can be relied upon.
To have a sense of how a war with Russia might play out without the US on NATO’s side, Sky News and Tortoise ran a wargame that simulates a Russian attack on the UK.
In the scenario, Washington does not come to Britain’s defences, which leaves the British side with very few options to respond short of a nuclear strike.
A powerful earthquake struck off northern Japan, injuring 33 people and unleashing a tsunami.
The 7.5-magnitude quake struck at about 11.15pm local time, around 80 kilometers off the coast of Aomori prefecture.
Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 33 people were injured, including one seriously, with most hurt by falling objects.
A road is congested with cars heading for higher ground in Tomakomai City December 8, 2025 after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake. Pics: AP
A tsunami of 70cm was measured just south of Aomori, in Kuji port, Iwate prefecture, while levels of up to 50cm struck elsewhere in the region, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
“I’ve never experienced such a big shaking,” said Nobuo Yamada, who owns a convenience store in Hachinohe, Aomori, in an interview with public broadcaster NHK.
Earlier on, the meteorological agency issued an alert for potential tsunami surges of up to 3m/10ft, with 90,000 residents ordered to evacuate.
Residents were urged by chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara to go to higher ground or seek shelter until advisories were lifted.
People sheltering today in Kamaishi Elementary School in Kamaishi City, Miyagi Prefecture. Pic: AP
He said about 800 homes were without electricity, and that the Shinkansen bullet trains and some local lines were suspended in parts of the region.
Some 480 residents took shelter at the Hachinohe Air Base, defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, with 18 defence helicopters mobilised for damage assessments.
While Satoshi Kato, vice principal of a public high school in the same town, encountered traffic jams and car accidents en-route to the school as panicked people tried to flee.
Japan has recent experience of the perils of earthquakes – one in 2011 unleashed a tsunami that killed some 20,000 people and triggered a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The earthquake warning off the coast of Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Pic: AP
Today’s quake caused about 450 litres of water to spill from a spent fuel cooling area at the Rokkasho fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
But water levels remained within the normal range and there was no safety concern, the authority added.
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The Japanese government has now lifted all remaining tsunami advisories, but warned people to remain alert for another week in case of aftershocks.
Satoshi Harada, from the meteorological agency’s earthquake and volcano division, cautioned that the 2011 quake could repeat itself.
“You need to prepare, assuming that a disaster like that could happen again,” he said.
World
Israeli government accused of intimidation and harassment after raid on UN building in Jerusalem
The Israeli government has been accused of intimidation, harassment and a “blatant disregard” of its obligations by the United Nations after Israeli officials raided a UN building in Jerusalem.
Police officers, along with officials from the town council, entered the East Jerusalem compound of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides services to Palestinian refugees.
The compound has been empty since January, when the Israeli government ordered UNRWA to close the building, accusing the agency of being “infested” with members of Hamas.
The United Nations denied that accusation vehemently.
Read more: What were UNRWA workers in Gaza accused of?
Having gained entry to the compound, the officials filled vehicles with possessions, including office furniture, and raised an Israeli flag in place of the United Nations flag.
They claimed that the building had been raided because UNRWA owed around hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of local taxes.
However, under the UN charter, UN buildings are exempt from such taxes and are also considered “inviolable”, meaning that, rather than raiding the building, Israel has an obligation to protect it.
Since its staff were told to leave, there have been attempts to break into the compound, which has been secured by a team of guards employed by the UN.
Sky News has been told that, when the Israeli officials arrived on Monday morning, the security guards were detained in a room within the compound.
“We didn’t let them in when they first came to the compound, but they cut the chains and the locks and took control,” said George, the head of security, who was standing outside the front gate when we arrived.
“They told my guards to stay in one room, took their phones from them, and told them they couldn’t leave.”
‘The false accusations led to this’
UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said the raid was “a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations Member State to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises”.
He said that failing to cooperate with UN agencies “represent a new challenge to international law, one that creates a dangerous precedent anywhere else the UN is present across the world”.
His anger was not isolated. Outside the gates of the UNRWA compound, we met Hakam Shahwam, who used to work here as UNRWA’s chief of staff. It was, he said, “a very sad day”.
Shahwam says the claims that UNRWA was a breeding ground for Hamas had led to the raid.
He told me: “The false accusations led to this. This is a shameful day, not only for the United Nations but also for the government of Israel.
“There must be a strong protest, and a response from the international community. This is unacceptable.”
Read more from Adam Parsons:
Gaza longs for normality, but quasi-anarchy reigns
Israeli forces kill two Palestinians after apparent surrender
‘It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled’
The Israeli government remains adamant that its criticism of UNRWA is justified.
When I asked Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about the raid, she said: “UNRWA is a stain on the United Nations.”
She added: “It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled. It is not part of the solution for Gaza, it is part of the problem.”
She did not comment on the legality of the raid, or on Israel’s ongoing commitment to the UN Charter.
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