April 23rd,2023.
Before we look at the events happening to and within the Scottish National Party (SNP) it is useful to look at the difference in the prosecution processes. In England, criminal prosecutions are controlled by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which is an independent service. In Scotland, they are controlled by the Lord Advocate.
The Lord Advocate is the senior of the two Scottish Law Officers. She is a Minister in the Scottish Government and the holder of a historic office which has a range of functions associated with the maintenance of the rule of law and the proper administration of justice. The role has four main components:
- head of the systems of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths
- principal legal adviser to the Scottish Government
- representing the Scottish Government in civil proceedings
- representing the public interest in a range of statutory and common law civil and constitutional functions
Most importantly she is a member of the cabinet of the SNP which governs in the Scottish assembly. This raises all sorts of issues of control and susceptibility to pressure from within the cabinet. One can see areas where conflicts of interest may arise.
This brings us to the SNP’s spectacular drop into alleged disgrace. If the happenings were recycled as the plot of a political thriller the book would be rejected as unbelievable.
At the start of the year, Nicola Sturgeon was the undisputed commander of all she surveyed. She was the leading politician in Scotland, and arguably the best political operator in the whole of the UK.
It was something of a shock when shortly after that another leading female politician Jacinda Ardern resigned (19th January) Nicola Sturgeon tendered her own resignation. (15th February). Events began to happen with ever-increasing momentum.
Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell who had been the chief executive of the SNP was arrested and questioned by police for eleven hours, before being released without charge, pending further investigations. Whilst this happened police raided and searched the family home and erected a forensic tent at the front of the house. Police were seen carrying shovels through to the back garden, to assist in their search for evidence.
Later, the SNP treasurer, Colin Beattie was arrested, questioned and released without charge as the investigations into the SNP’s finances gathered pace.
Murrell and Beattie were two of the three officials responsible for the management and administration of the funds of the SNP. The third was Nicola Sturgeon, who has yet to be interviewed by the police. As yet none of them has been charged with any offence.
The enquiries were triggered by mysteries over what happened to £667,000 raised to be ring-fenced and applied to the next independence referendum. The published accounts show the SNP to be short of cash. The situation became odder when it was revealed that Murrell had loaned the party £107,000 in June 2021 to assist with cash flow.
It became murkier when unknown to all but a select few members the party’s auditors resigned in October 2022. The party have still been unable to appoint new ones.
This produces its own problems. The party needs to produce audited accounts by the end of May 2023 or the support money from central Westminster funds to the party will cease. This applies to all opposition parties. This will result in £1,2000,000 not being available to the SNP to help cover this year’s running costs.
Just when things were settling down it was revealed that a luxury camper van valued at about £120,000 was found to be parked at Murrell’s 92-year-old mother’s house. It transpired that it had been parked there since 2021 and was owned by the SNP. It was removed from the house in Dunfermline and impounded by the police.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, a YouGov poll published yesterday found that 39 per cent of Scottish voters viewed the new leader, Hamza Yusaf as incompetent with only 26 per cent thinking he was up to the job. 45 per cent saw him as weak (only 18 per cent thought he was strong) and 44 per cent as out of touch (with only 26 per cent seeing him as in touch).
Only 19 per cent thought he was doing a good job, 44 per cent thought he was doing a bad job.
Things became worse for the SNP as the YouGov poll gave it 38 per cent of the vote, way down from its zenith and only eight points ahead of Labour.
It had become a victim of its own arrogance and when the controversial gender recognition reforms were introduced there was no one in power urging the use of a handbrake. No one was pointing out the massive opposition to it from the ground swell of opinion within the electorate. She was encouraged by the Greens who saw it as an opportunity to progress another part of their agenda into law. With independence off the agenda, the SNP will be thrown back on its record of government, which is a dismal prospect.
Under the SNP, Scotland has failed in building the simplest of interisland ferries, with design deficiencies resulting in windows being painted on the superstructure. It ruined the once internationally acclaimed Scottish education system, damaged economic growth introduced high taxes, oversaw a deteriorating health service and watched the growth of the highest drug-related death rate in Europe.
There is now widespread speculation that Nicola Sturgeon will shortly be arrested and questioned. The police seem to have been finding facts and details and working their way upwards until they can interview Sturgeon with greater knowledge and facts at hand. This tactic is used when investigating organised crime – investigate at the bottom end and work upwards building the case against the senior suspects. Police have now extended their search parameters and are seeking burner phones and SIM cards.
Of course, all these events have created their own humour, such as “Scottish Police carried out a drag search of Loch Leven, near Dunfermline and recovered 48 shopping trolleys and three camper vans”.
Whilst we have seen English politicians having a quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) chuckle at the mess in which the SMP finds itself, they were hit this morning with the resignation of the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister, Dominic Raab. An inquiry found that two of twenty-four charges of bullying whilst in office were proven. His defence on the two proven charges was that the civil servants within his department were being deliberately obstructive and causing difficulties with the development and administration of policy. This is slowly exposing conflict between other ministers and their departments with prime causes of dissent being the reluctance of civil servants to give up WFH (Work From Home) and resume attending their offices and almost direct refusal to carry out instructions on immigration policy at the Home Office. This will give rise to constitutional issues as the unelected officials slowly usurp more power.
One of Raab’s proven misdemeanours was apparently tearing a strip off the British Ambassador to Spain during Brexit negotiations when the Ambassador went directly against his minister’s instructions (agreed in cabinet) on the UK’s position as regards Gibraltar.
The former British minister Dominic Raab, who left the government on Friday after being accused of harassment at work, removed the UK ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliot, from the Gibraltar negotiations during his time at the Foreign Office after he allegedly crossed the lines set by London with his proposals.
[…] who has acknowledged that among the matters under investigation were alleged excesses in the months leading up to the agreement that set the framework for Gibraltar after Brexit at the end of 2020.
Raab admitted that a “senior diplomat” had overstepped the mark and made “personnel changes” at a key moment in the negotiations with Spain. “I found that a key negotiator had overstepped the democratic mandate set by the government, putting the UK’s sovereignty at risk,” he said. Raab summoned Elliot in November 2020, for a meeting that would have been key to the subsequent complaint. The ambassador remained in his post – he is still the UK’s diplomatic representative in Spain – but was removed from the negotiations, which were joined by Simon Manley, the former ambassador in Madrid.
Source The Diplomat April 23rd, 2023.
“This is what is referred to by the British Military as a “meeting without coffee”.
One outcome of all this is that Sunak has been exposed as weak and being pushed around by the civil service.
Once climate change kicks in and the UK becomes a net exporter of bananas then it will be a banana kingdom (unless of course Charles 111 calls it a day and it becomes a republic).
Late news, Infamous Dianne Abbott, a close associate of Jeremy Corbin has just been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party for antisemitic views expressed in a letter.
