Nicola Sturgeon was this week reported to Police Scotland for allegedly handling stolen goods, marking a surprise new chapter in the long-running saga over SNP finances. Police confirmed they had "received information" and would respond in due course. It may be that the complaint comes to nothing, as Sturgeon has consistently denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly insisted she was unaware of her estranged husband Peter Murrell's crimes.
The former SNP chief executive was jailed in June for five years after pleading guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from his employers. But it is notable who made this latest complaint.
Who is Stuart Campbell?
Stuart Campbell is a former video games journalist who has long since specialised in writing about Scottish politics. He launched his Wings over Scotland blog more than 15 years ago. Campbell initially cast a critical eye over what he viewed as a media landscape overtly hostile to the idea of independence.
Despite being based in Bath, Campbell quickly became one of the stand-out voices on Scottish politics in a new media world in the mid-2010s dominated by Twitter and Facebook. But it is his dogged reporting on the SNP finances scandal, which grew into the Operation Branchform investigation in 2021, for which he is now best known.
Campbell's role in uncovering the scandal
Campbell was a critic of Nicola Sturgeon's time as First Minister and her strategy on independence in particular. In 2017 and 2019, the SNP ran two online fundraisers, telling donors at the time the cash would be "ringfenced" for an IndyRef2. The campaign never happened. Campbell first wrote a blog in 2020 asking what had happened to the more than £600,000 of donations - a full six years before Murrell was jailed.
"Back at that time I was quite friendly with several people who were on the SNP NEC," Campbell told the BBC Scotcast podcast just days after Murrell's jailing. "And some of them came to me and, said, 'look, we've been asking questions about this, and we keep getting fobbed off'. It didn't take a great deal of digging. All you had to do was go and look at the SNP's published accounts. It was clear, even at the start of 2020, that a large sum of money had gone missing."
Operation Branchform and the complaints
Police Scotland would receive a total of 14 complaints from members of the public, including activist Sean Clerkin, regarding how the SNP had spent the donations. Detectives launched Operation Branchform in July 2021. The focus was initially a potential fraud inquiry, but by early spring 2023 the investigation's attention had focused on potential embezzlement, with spending by Murrell coming under forensic examination.
Campbell insists there has yet to be justice for the original donors to the ringfenced fund. "The whole thing about this story is there have been two crimes," he told the BBC. "There has been either fraud, or embezzlement, by the SNP, depending on the circumstances, against thousands of donors. And there has been embezzlement by Peter Murrell against the SNP - the two are totally separate crimes. We uncovered the first one, and that hasn't been addressed or resolved in anyway."
The SNP has insisted the police investigation has dealt with all of these matters and established the party was a victim of Murrell's crimes. But with his complaint against Sturgeon, Campbell shows no sign of backing down.
