The SNP is facing fresh questions over why it paid £825,000 to settle Yes Scotland's bills at the end of the 2014 referendum. The cash, branded a "bailout" by critics, was first revealed in Electoral Commission records in 2015.
Financial Discrepancies Revealed
The following year, the company behind the Yes campaign published accounts detailing a massive correction in its balance sheet. In 2014, the firm's books claimed it had £75,117 in reserves as of October 2014. However, in its 2015 accounts, this balance was revised to become a massive liability of £496,525, with creditors owed more than £600,000.
Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie, who was Lib Dem leader during the referendum and spoke out about the accounts, said: "I had serious questions at the time about the state of Yes Scotland's finances. But now, with the conviction of Peter Murrell, there must be a clearer explanation of why its finances were so chaotic. If I were a supporter of independence, especially a supporter of the SNP, I would want to know exactly how my donations had been handled."
Deficit Cleared by 2016
By 2016, accounts showed the deficit was entirely cleared, and the company's books have shown £0 in net assets every year since. The Yes campaign had vowed to be "self-financing". The SNP transferred the £825,000 block of funding to Yes Scotland Ltd in three tranches in late 2014. The party gave the campaign £275,000 just eight days before the referendum, then another £550,000 in November 2014. Insiders claimed that without the cash, Yes would have been unable to pay its final bills.
Donations and Spending
The Electoral Commission's report from the referendum found Yes Scotland took £2.6 million in donations during the regulated period and spent £1.4 million on campaigning. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: "More than a decade on, there are still glaring questions about how Yes Scotland's finances ended up in such a mess, why the true position only emerged years later, and why the campaign needed such a substantial SNP bailout despite claiming it would be self-financing."
Yes Scotland's Explanation
Yes Scotland Ltd said the accounts were restated to "reflect invoices received in the later stages of the campaign" including a £420,000 bill for newspaper advertising. It added: "Initially these later invoices were to be reflected in the 2015 accounts but it was better practice to include them in the 2014 accounts, since the actual spending they reflected had taken place in the run-up to the referendum and all of these sums had been included in the official spending returns to the Electoral Commission. That was why the 2014 accounts were adjusted to show a balance sheet with outstanding payments due of £496,525. There were then late donations to the campaign by the SNP which are included in the 2015 accounts and resulted in a nil balance at the end of that year."
