SNP auditors quit as Nicola Sturgeon urged to speak out over scandal

The auditors of the SNP’s accounts have quit, as sources warned that Nicola Sturgeon’s silence over the scandal engulfing the party was becoming a “festering wound”.

On Friday, it emerged that Johnston Carmichael, an accountancy firm that has worked with the party for more than a decade, had quit amid a police probe into the party’s finances that saw Ms Sturgeon’s home searched and her husband, Peter Murrell, arrested.

While the firm refused to reveal the reason for walking away, citing client confidentiality, the move was seen as a sign of deepening crisis linked to the SNP’s financial position.

One senior supporter of Kate Forbes, who narrowly missed out on the SNP leadership, said: “If a firm of chartered accountants makes a statement they are not willing to carry out an audit, there’s usually a serious disagreement with the client. There may be some irregularity or impropriety.

“The big picture is there’s so many questions that require an answer and they are not going to go away. They are going to suppurate like a festering wound. Until they are answered, the new first minister will be the victim of collateral damage.

“It’s necessary for Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell to start giving answers to all these questions. What on Earth is going on?”

They warned that the furore would continue for months if Ms Sturgeon, the former first minister, and her husband remained silent and the SNP could not start recovering. She pulled out of a climate change event she had been due to take part in on Thursday and has gone to ground, with Mr Murrell’s location also unknown.

The SNP has until July 7 to present its next set of accounts to the Electoral Commission or face possible sanctions.

Referring to the auditors quitting, the source added: “This is a serious development. Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell, John Swinney and Liz Lloyd – these people were the inner circle.

“It’s time that the quad spoke out in the interests of the party. They got us into this mess and they need to get us out of it. There’s more and more people in the party who are getting angrier and angrier and angrier by the day, watching the party they love implode and face destruction.”

On Thursday, Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader, insisted the party was in “good financial health” but admitted that “I want it to be better.”

It is understood the auditors resigned prior to the arrest of Mr Murrell, who was the SNP chief executive for more than two decades.

The police probe into party finances involves questions over how around £600,000 of donations, which were solicited for independence referendum campaigns that never happened, had been spent. Complaints were made to police after members noticed that the supposedly ring-fenced cash was “missing” from the accounts.

An interest-free loan of £107,620 which Mr Murrell gave to the party in May 2021 is also believed to be being looked into by police. According to the most recent public financial disclosures, £60,000 of the balance remains outstanding.

Over recent years, the SNP has struggled to attract large donations, leaving it reliant on membership fees for the bulk of its income. However, membership numbers have plummeted by around 30,000 since the last accounts, for 2021, were published.

Then, the party had around 104,000 members, who were worth £2.5 million in annual membership income. As of last month, there were only 72,169 members.

The 2021 accounts showed the SNP had income of £4.5 million but expenditure of £5.2 million. In those accounts, Johnson Carmichael said it had worked with the SNP to avoid fraud or misstatements.

An SNP spokesman said: “It would not be appropriate to comment on any live police investigation, but the SNP have been cooperating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so.

“At its meeting on Saturday, the governing body of the SNP, the NEC, agreed to a review of governance and transparency. This will be taken forward in the coming weeks.”