The arrest of Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, in connection with a police investigation into the Scottish National party’s finances is likely to have a far-reaching effect on UK politics and possibly the next general election.
In the weeks since Sturgeon announced in mid-February that she was standing down as the SNP’s leader and as first minister, her party had already endured the most damaging period in its history during a deeply divisive campaign to elect her successor.
Later on Wednesday Murrell was released without charge pending further investigation, and the SNP has consistently denied the party mishandled the donations thought to be central to the police inquiry. But his arrest comes at a moment of great peril for the party.
Sturgeon’s successor, Humza Yousaf, a candidate she had clearly preferred, won the leadership by a very narrow margin over Kate Forbes. That immediately left his mandate to lead in doubt. Scottish voters saw a once-unified party deeply riven by ideological and political disputes, while Yousaf’s reputation as health secretary, after months of intense opposition attacks, left many doubting his suitability to lead the country.
Murrell’s initial arrest, and the accompanying search of his and Sturgeon’s home in Glasgow, will fuel speculation that the police investigation contributed to her resignation.
Sturgeon was adamant she quit because she was fatigued and believed the party needed a change of direction. The crises over the future of the independence campaign, her unpopular gender recognition changes, her failure to fix the NHS and the toll of leading the country through the Covid pandemic were cause enough, she suggested.
There is a very significant question, too, for the SNP and Yousaf directly linked to the police investigation: what is its impact on the party’s future finances, a year before it has to defend 45 seats in a general election?
Murrell resigned suddenly as the SNP’s chief executive nine days before the leadership election closed, after a bitter row over the party’s membership figures. It emerged that 30,000 members, nearly 30% of the previous total, had left the party in recent months – a fact the SNP had repeatedly denied.
The SNP is very heavily dependent on member subscriptions; it has few wealthy donors. A development of this magnitude – and on the topic of SNP funding – may greatly dent Yousaf’s attempts to rebuild the party’s support base and its finances, while it faces a richer, highly motivated Labour party.
The latest opinion polls show the transition from Sturgeon to Yousaf is already having a substantial impact on the SNP’s popularity. After nearly 20 years of stability under her leadership and that of her former mentor Alex Salmond, where the SNP has consistently enjoyed 20-point leads over its rivals, the latest opinion polls suggest it now faces defeat to Labour in a swathe of seats.
The polls show a consistent slump in SNP support, with Scottish Labour’s sharply increasing. There are signs, too, that voters in Scotland may no longer be aligning their party preferences with their views on independence.
Since the 2014 Scottish referendum, voter preferences have become very closely linked to where they stood on independence: yes voters backed the SNP or the Scottish Greens even if they disapproved of the SNP’s domestic policies; no voters backed the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
But with Sturgeon’s resignation, any hopes among yes voters of a fresh referendum in the near future have died. Her risky attempt to get supreme court backing for Holyrood holding a second referendum without Westminster approval badly backfired. Voters hated her idea of making the next general election a de facto referendum. Yousaf attacked it, too, and made clear it may be years before Scotland was ready for a fresh vote on independence.
So the link between party support and the constitution has weakened. The latest polls suggest Labour is now winning support from pro-UK and pro-independence voters.
The most recent, by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, found Labour was on 31% in a Westminster election, five points behind the SNP on 36%. While Labour’s support went up, support for the SNP and the pro-UK Tories had fallen.
It comes at a time when there is a wider sense among voters the SNP is in decline. Questions of trust are central to an election. The Redfield and Wilton poll found Labour was the “most favourably viewed” party in Scotland, with a net positive rating of 11%; the SNP came second, with a 3% net favourability rating.
Those figures will greatly increase anxiety about Yousaf’s leadership within the SNP, and will embolden the now emergent pro-Forbes wing that opposes him. All told, Yousaf faces an extremely difficult honeymoon period. His critics and opponents, inside and outside the SNP, will be calculating how to profit from it.
