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February 15th 2023.
Nicola Sturgeon resigned today as First Minister of Scotland. The little piece below is suddenly doing the rounds!
Nicola Sturgeon resigned at 11 am today and gave her main reason as burnout.
Meanwhile, an SNP official told Politico: ‘It’s a Jacinda Ardern moment. Better to leave before the ship sinks and you’re pushed.’ Sources close to the First Minister said ‘she’s had enough’, just weeks after she told the BBC there was ‘plenty in the tank’.
They described it as a ‘Jacinda Ardern moment’, a reference to the New Zealand PM who suddenly quit early this year, adding that it was ‘better to leave before the ship sinks and you’re pushed’.
How wrong can you be? Nicola Sturgeon didn’t leave because of burnout, and all the evidence points to Jacinda Ardern’s departure appearing to have been planned by her fellow Labour party members. Nicola Sturgeon was losing support in the polls and the latest political poll showed support for independence slipping to 44%.
Sturgeon’s priorities have been independence, independence and gender reassignment. The electorate’s priorities were cost of living, the state of the Scottish NHS, rampant drug abuse and crime and education standards.
The final straw was the gender reassignment discussions where sturgeon famously tied herself in knots in an interview where she couldn’t explain why someone who had raped two women, then changed self-identification (male to female) during his trial shouldn’t be sent to a female prison as her suggested legislation demanded. This put her into conflict with the staunch promoter and defender of women’s right and need for safe spaces – J. K. Rowling.
It looks as though J. K. Rowling’s influence has won the day.
The SNP looked at the polls and public reaction to Sturgeon and despite her control over the party (her husband is the Chief Executive Officer of the SNP) her leadership was beginning to come apart at the seams.
Meanwhile:
– NICOLA Sturgeon is facing more questions over the SNP’s finances as police step up their investigation into a potential fundraising fraud,
After preliminary contacts when the probe began 18 months ago, Police Scotland have started to contact key witnesses about taking more substantive statements.
One senior figure told the Herald on Sunday they expected to be interviewed imminently as ‘Operation Branchform’ shifts gear.
Launched in July 2021, it is looking at whether funds raised specifically for an “independence campaign” were improperly spent by the SNP on other things.
The police have now been asked to include a six-figure loan from Ms Sturgeon’s husband to the party in their inquiry.
Peter Murrell, the SNP chief executive, loaned £107,620 the day after a party leadership meeting discussed the funding being looked at by police, the Herald on Sunday can reveal.
The SNP’s ruling body discussed the independence fund on 19 June 2021, after which Treasurer Colin Beattie issued a lengthy public statement denying anything was amiss.
The following day, Mr Murrell made the loan “to assist with cashflow”.
The Scottish Tories said Ms Sturgeon must explain the “extraordinary coincidence”.
The SNP has refused to say if the referendum fund and the loan are linked.
The SNP failed to declare the loan for more than a year – the first time it had failed to declare a loan on time since entering power in 2007 – and disguised the source in its annual accounts.
Although the party said the money was to assist with cashflow after the 2021 Holyrood election, more than half of it – £60,000 – has yet to be repaid.
Source The Herald 12th February 2023
The Scottish Daily Express commented after the resignation announcement.
Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as Scottish First Minister is certainly a seismic moment in the history of the country post-devolution. Her eight years in charge have been among the most bitter and divisive in living memory as she looked to tear up the family of nations that is the UK.
And yet, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Sturgeon must have thought she could do no wrong. Loved by the political left, she was hailed as a poster woman for ‘progressive’ politics as she embarked on strict lockdown policies.
Of course, many in Scotland knew differently. And since 2021, Sturgeon has seen her star fade to the point many in her own party had started to openly question her.
Despite her assistance that short-term pressures played no part in her decision, analysis will turn on the gender reforms that have led to support for Sturgeon, the SNP and Scexit plummeting. But beneath the surface, an even murkier scandal that has been brewing now for nearly 24 months.
The story actually starts in 2017 when Scexit supporters raised £600,000 to be ring-fenced for the SNP’s indyref fight. Yet, within two years that money was gone.
By the end of 2019, the party had just £96,000 in the bank. So where did it go?
That was a question asked by SNP activist Sean Clerkin, who had stood as a Glasgow council candidate in 2003. In March 2021, he lodged a complaint with Police Scotland suspecting fraud.
In April that year, three members of the SNP’s Finance and Audit Committee resigned. It was reported that Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, who is also the SNP’s chief executive – refused to let them see the accounts.
A month later, party treasurer Douglas Chapman stood down, citing frustration over not being able to carry out his duties. That was followed by Joanna Cherry MP – no fan of Sturgeon – stepping down from the party’s National Executive Committee. Ms Cherry claimed she was prevented from improving “transparency” and “scrutiny” within the party.
In July 2021, Police Scotland confirmed it was opening a probe into alleged fraud relating to the ‘missing’ £600,000. There have been huge complaints over the slow pace of the investigation, but in January this year, it was confirmed a report had been handed to the Crown Office while they consider the next move.
The story took another twist in August last year when the SNP accounts showed the party had received a £107,620 loan from ‘executive management’. It soon emerged that the source of the cash was Peter Murrell.
The interest-free loan, which has been partially paid back, raised questions over what it was used for and how much the First Minister knew about it. Critics pointed out it was extremely “unusual” for the party’s chief executive to give money to the party.
Sturgeon was typically evasive when questioned on the loan, which broke electoral rules. Just last week she claimed she could not remember when she found out about the loan, saying: “My husband is an individual and he will take decisions about what he does with resources that belong to him in line.”
According to the last set of SNP accounts, the party balance sheet position stands at £610,765 in 2021, a fall of £751,612 or 55 per cent since 2020 due to a deficit. In 2020, the party’s overall balance sheet position was £1,362,377.
Source Scottish Daily Express 15th February 2023.
There are comparisons that can be made between the two departures. Please ignore any temptation to draw financial comparisons between the two parties and concentrate on the political issues. There will be more to come about the SNP in the future.
Politically, both parties were losing support with the electorate, both leaders were slipping in the polls, both leaders were having decisions questioned internally and were concentrating on issues that were intensely irritating to the electorate. The electorate was getting annoyed with the arrogance and hubris emanating from both leaders and support was ebbing away. It would appear that both resignations were driven internally by people who had political brains.
