Yousaf may need to be ruthless as crisis roils the SNP

There is no mistaking the glee in Westminster and Conservative-leaning English print media at the mess engulfing the Scottish National Party (SNP). Newspapers in London have delighted in splashing with events in Edinburgh as the SNP is roiled by financial scandal.

British prime minister Rishi Sunak joined in the fun on the House of Commons on Wednesday by telling the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn to “motor on with the job”. That was a clear jibe about the £110,000 luxury motorhome seized by police from outside the home of the mother of Peter Murrell, former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s husband.

Flynn retorted that he would “take no lectures” from Tories about sleaze. The problem for the SNP is that the Conservative Party now has justification to say the same to its Scottish counterpart.

Murrell quit as SNP chief executive last month. He was subsequently arrested and released pending further inquiries by officers investigating the whereabouts of up to £660,000 in party donations that were supposed to be set aside for an independence referendum, but now cannot be accounted for. On Wednesday, Colin Beattie said he would “step back” as the party’s treasurer after he too was arrested this week.

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In London, where everything the SNP does is viewed through the prism of the threat the party poses to the union, the japes at its expense continue. The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday ran a jaunty review of the Niesmann+Bischof motorhome, which it has been suggested was to be used as an SNP election “battle bus”.

The battle now for the SNP’s new leader, Humza Yousaf, is to steer the party out of the flames of crisis licking up the walls of party headquarters. The problem he faces is that events seem beyond his, or anybody’s, control.

Three officers of the SNP signed off its accounts for 2021, the year the police started investigating the whereabouts of the £660,000 in cash donations that have vanished from its balance sheet. Two of the signatories, Murrell and Beattie, have already been arrested. The third was Sturgeon, the SNP’s matriarch and Yousaf’s mentor whose support is seen as having been crucial in helping him scrape over the line in the recent contest to replace her.

It would seem incongruous if the police were to have no interest in speaking to the former party leader as part of the investigation. Sturgeon has repeatedly insisted she will fully co-operate if asked. But the mere prospect – some in the SNP believe it to be a certainty – of Sturgeon being interviewed by police conducting a criminal investigation could be ruinous for Yousaf, her protégé.

He shackled his fate to hers during the leadership campaign by unashamedly setting out his stall as the candidate of “continuity” from Sturgeon’s administration. It got him elected as leader. To stay in the job he now faces the possibility of having to disown her. If that happens Sturgeon will know how he feels. She previously disowned her old political mentor, former leader Alex Salmond, when he was faced with strife.

Yousaf’s ability to act with the necessary ruthlessness is doubted by many, including a significant number within his own party. He could yet surprise them all. Or he could wilt. There is no way of knowing. But politicians by their nature are wont to do whatever they must to stay in power. Whatever else he mightn’t be, Yousaf is still an ambitious politician.

As for the SNP, its support is slipping. It seems in danger of losing half its seats in the UK general election next year but it will probably still end up as the third biggest party in Westminster. There are no Scottish parliamentary elections due for another three years, which gives it time to right its ship. The SNP is in crisis, but it is far from dead yet.