On Saturday the SNP’s ruling body ordered a review of transparency and the way the party is managed after the recent controversy over its finances. Recent? Many of us had been warning of this day for several years now. I have lost count of how many times this publication stated that the first task Nicola Sturgeon should have completed on becoming leader in 2014 was to replace her husband as Party CEO. So hardly recent controversy!

It was a red flag from day one. The question of the SNP finances was first raised in late 2019 by Wings Over Scotland. Many more of us took up the theme and the destruction of the party’s constitution, NEC and all its internal structures. Nice to see the foreign owned media catching up four years late!

In September 2020, David Henry, the Organiser for SNP Edinburgh Pentlands constituency association and the secretary of the Sighthill & Stenhouse branch, brought forward a court action. David was suing the SNP for £5000. He reckoned this was his ‘loss’ including membership fees and donations to the party.

David lost his case. In the aftermath I couldn’t believe our first class media pack didn’t seize that opportunity to do what they are now, four years too late.

You’ve been robbed

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18750871.snp-activist-sues-party-rule-mps-seeking-election-holyrood/

It seems that every day now there is a new revelation regarding the SNP. The foreign owned media is finally doing what it should have been doing from 2015. I remember discussions in The Dog & Duck. We could not understand why the anti-Scottish Independence media were not investigating and exposing Sturgeon and her cabal. We could all see it, more and more people on social media could see it every day. However, our 4th Estate would not or could not see what was going on. They are supposed to hold power to account for the public. The foreign owned media in Scotland have always acted more like a 5th Column for the English Imperialists. It seems only now that they have received their instructions to attack the wounded beast.

The damage done to the SNP is so great I worry that it is beyond saving. Others and I suggested that the leadership contest was the very last chance for the SNP to save itself. This blog explained in detail why we thought Mr Continuity Yousaf would be the worst of choices. We said then and have sadly been proved right. He has not done a single thing to address the structural deficiencies of the SNP.

During the campaign Humza promised anything and everything depending on where he was and the question asked. He flipped and he flopped and he flipped again. He would be the unity candidate. His first actions were to force Kate Forbes and Ivan McKee to resign by offering them demoted jobs. He sacked Keith Brown, the Party Deputy as Justice Minister. He ignored Ash completely and offered her nothing. So much for being the unity candidate.

On the campaign trail he embraced the need for sweeping changes at SNP HQ following the resignation of chief executive Peter Murrell. He also said, that one of his first tasks would be to “get up to speed very quickly on the financial health of the party”, with a transparency review to be carried out.

He has, of course made no changes let alone, the sweeping changes to SNP HQ he promised. He appointed Sue Ruddock the SNP COO to the position of acting CEO. More like acting the goat! Apparently Ms Ruddock has also been questioned by Police Scotland in the pursuit of their enquiries. Yet Humza slots her right into place. Mr Continuity right enough!

After flipping and flopping over challenging the Section 35 he decided to go gung ho and attempt to get this abomination of a Bill saved. This is despite knowing it was this very issue that forced his predecessor to resign. He is also aware it is the main reason that SNP has lost 50-70,000 members in the past couple of years. Yet such is the SNP sense of entitlement and lack of awareness he is heading down the same road as Sturgeon. It will also end the same way for him too. What was it Einstein said?

He has inherited a disaster from the Murrells. No money, no auditors, no structures, no internal democracy, falling membership. He has also kept intact the entire team that created this mess in the first place. He has appointed a cabinet of no marks. They have either like him failed abysmally in previous roles, step forward Shona Robinson & Shirley-Anne Somerville. Others have no experience or skillsets to perform the tasks allotted. They are in the main Sturgeon/Murrell loyalists, the ones that sat silently as the Scottish Ceaușescus burnt down the entire SNP and movement.

The SNP ruling cabal and the appointed, not elected NEC did to the independence movement what the unionists have been trying to do for decades. They holed the SS SNP and the YES Movement below the waterline. Great patriotic Scots like our founders Don Roberto and Alexander McEwan through other stalwarts like, Dr Robert Mcintyre, Willie Wolfe, Gordon Wilson, Alex Salmond all their hard work and dedication over 80 years trashed by Sturgeon in 8 years!

Trying and failing to look like a global leader yesterday Humza told us the outcome of the SNP NEC Meeting.

The SNP’s ruling body has ordered a review of transparency and the way the party is managed after recent controversy over its finances.

When you delve into this, you realise this group have to report back to the NEC by June.Humza Yousaf said a new working group would publish an interim report in June. It will be followed by a full report ahead of the SNP’s autumn conference. So here we are in mid-April, and Humza thinks this matter can be left until October to be settled? Does he have any idea just how serious and urgent the problems are he has inherited?

We are told if by 31st May the SNP does not have new auditors Westminster will halt ‘short money’ payments. This is the money that pays for all the staff. So just lay staff off till after Autumn Conference?

They also need to have the auditors sign off on their annual accounts by July 31st. They face the very real possibility of being the first political party in UK having auditors appointed for them by the EC. Last time I looked, October followed July!

The Electoral Commission confirmed it has the legal power to send in its own financial team if the party fails to lodge its accounts for 2022 on time.

The party is hanging on by its fingernails, and Humza is waiting till October to actually do anything about it? It beggars belief!

When rumours began circulating on missing money Keith Brown was charged with compiling a report on the SNP Finances. It was a 40 page detailed document presented to the leadership as a blueprint to avoid the very situation we are seeing today. Brown had in his proposals a plan to increase transparency by demanding “a monthly written summary of income and expenditure.” He also wanted to appoint Fund Raising Manager.

All of the recommendations were ignored and in the main because of unelected officials and the party leader didn’t want them implemented. The main blockers to change were Sturgeon, Peter Murrell and Kirsten Oswald. Kirsten was appointed business convener by Sturgeon.

Mike Russell the SNP president was said to be supportive of the Brown proposals. They were never implemented, like everything else for the past 8+ years and I mean everything, if Sturgeon and Murrell didn’t approve it didn’t happen. By the same token if she or he wanted something it happened. Even if a QC, a jury or a Court of Session judge disagreed!

Also worth noting Mike Russell saying today he knew nothing of any financial difficulties or irregularities is exposed as a big fat fib!

Why did the NEC at the weekend not revisit the Keith Brown proposals with a view to implementing the findings immediately?

This delaying on any action regarding the systemic failings of the SNP is only delaying the inevitable carnage that needs to occur if that party is to survive. A decisive leader instead of a Continuity leader would have acted immediately. Their first act would have been to sack Murrell and suspend his membership for his part in the membership lies!

What came after would only have confirmed that the action taken was the correct decision. Under police investigation for possible financial fraud, immediate suspension of membership and gardening leave while the investigation is completed.

Revelation of £110,000 luxury mobile home bought by CEO without NEC approval. Instant dismissal and expulsion for gross industrial misconduct. No severance pay, no reference and police informed of a possible crime. As an aside. Why was an alleged SNP asset parked up at unelected CEO’s mother’s house?

The shattering news that the auditors had quit six months earlier? Instant dismissal and expulsion from the party. As of the time this is being written Mr Murrell is still a member of the SNP and his legal costs are shrouded in mystery!

The entire HQ staff should have been immediately replaced. The NEC suspended pending new elections. An outside of the clique CEO should have been given the temporary role. I would suggest someone such as Roger Mullen would be ideal to fill such a role. He is also a lifelong independence supporter as well as a long-term SNP member. More importantly he has not been infected by the Sturgeon/Murrell tenure!

To those of us wholly committed to Scottish Independence. There is no longer any mention of a Special Conference to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court ruling of November 23rd, 2022. Immediate action on the loathed Self ID GRRB and total silence on independence! He most certainly is Mr Continuity!

My old maw used to say, it’s dear to buy cheap. I am sorry to say the SNP have elected a poundshop leader and his words and promises are worthless!