Russell Findlay has launched a blistering attack on former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon following the guilty plea of her husband and former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell in the long running Operation Branchform investigation.
Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National Party during proceedings at the High Court in Edinburgh earlier this week.
The case has sent shockwaves through Scottish politics and intensified scrutiny around the SNP leadership during the years Murrell and Sturgeon occupied the centre of power within the party.
Reacting to the guilty plea, Findlay directly challenged Sturgeon’s repeated insistence that she had no knowledge of wrongdoing involving party finances.
“Peter Murrell has finally taken the rap for being a thieving magpie but he used vast sums of the stolen cash to feather the marital nest he shared with Nicola Sturgeon.
“His crime spree took place right under her nose over many years while they jointly held a vice like grip on the SNP.
“You would need to be a particularly gullible member of Nicola Sturgeon’s fan club to swallow her preposterous protestations of ignorance about her husband’s criminal racket.”
Findlay also referenced a previously leaked video involving Sturgeon discussing party finances during the growing controversy surrounding Operation Branchform.
“In a bombshell leaked video, Sturgeon shot down concerns about the SNP’s finances when we now know that her party was being plundered by her husband.
“In the same video, she also issued a menacing warning to SNP colleagues to keep their mouths shut. Will she now explain why she told them that everything was fine?”
The Scottish Conservative leader went further by questioning whether Sturgeon could realistically have been unaware of Murrell’s spending over such a prolonged period.
“And as a supposed master of fine detail, is it really plausible to believe that she didn’t notice that her crooked husband was spending money like a lottery jackpot winner?
“Did she never think to ask Peter where the money was coming from?”
Findlay also attempted to widen the political attack beyond Murrell personally by linking the scandal to wider public distrust in the SNP leadership.
“And if the SNP’s chief executive, who was appointed by John Swinney, is willing to steal from their own supporters, is anyone surprised that the party swipes so much tax from the wages of hard working Scots?”
Murrell’s guilty plea now marks one of the most damaging moments in the SNP’s modern history and is likely to continue dominating political debate at Holyrood and Westminster in the weeks ahead.
For the SNP, the case represents not simply a criminal conviction involving a former senior official, but a profound political and reputational crisis that continues casting a long shadow over Scotland’s governing party.
