JACKIE Baillie has been branded “childish” after she used a BBC interview to attack a planned inquiry into the funding of all Scottish political parties.
The deputy leader of Scottish Labour spoke to BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast show after her party’s bid to force a parliamentary inquiry into the SNP’s finances failed on Wednesday evening.
Instead, MSPs in the Holyrood parliament voted for an inquiry into the funding of all political parties in order to address “wider concerns about the role of money in politics, including the scale of donations by extremely wealthy individuals, and the influence of organisations that refuse to disclose their funding sources”.
Baillie told the BBC on Thursday that an inquiry into all of Scotland’s parties was a “smokescreen” and claimed that the SNP were “sweeping things under the carpet”.
“The Greens amendment that they moved is literally a smokescreen and a place, if you like, that affords cover for the SNP,” the Labour MSP said.
“This is about, as far as the Government and the SNP are concerned, sweeping things under the carpet, nothing to see here, we have just to trust them.
“The reality is, this is probably one of the biggest scandals that I have witnessed in Scotland in the Scottish Parliament, and it doesn’t just impact on the SNP, it impacts on all our politicians, because the lack of trust that the public have is further undermined, so we do need a parliamentary inquiry.
“It should be cross-party, so there are questions that actually have nothing to do with the internal workings of the SNP.
“The internal workings of the SNP should be considered by them and should be considered by the Electoral Commission, but the reality is there are questions in relation to the length and cost of the police investigation.”
Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell pleaded guilty last month to embezzling more than £400,000 over 12 years and will be sentenced later in June.
Asked whether Scottish Labour would take part in the inquiry that was voted through Holyrood, Baillie said: “If an inquiry is set up, we will of course take part.”
MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster could still step in and launch their own investigation, although their remit is to scrutinise the “expenditure, administration and policies of the Scotland Office and its associated bodies”, not individual political parties.
Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie said that the motion which passed, calling for an inquiry into all party funding, was “the bare minimum that any democrat should support rather than the childish and self-serving nonsense that was offered by a Labour Party that has just achieved the worst election result in its history”.
Harvie went on: “The SNP’s failings are clear, and it’s right that any further investigations into the Peter Murrell saga are led by Police Scotland or the Electoral Commission rather than MSPs treating it as a political circus.
“Parliament has voted for an independent process and we hope it is one that the Labour Party co-operate with, rather than obstructing and undermining it before it has even begun.
“People across Scotland are sick of the wealthiest people having the loudest voice. All parties have a role if we are to restore trust.”
Ivan McKee, the SNP’s Public Service Reform Secretary, said of the inquiry vote: “The SNP are the victims here. It’s important to recognise that, and the motion that was passed yesterday which we supported, brought forward by the Greens, was for an inquiry into all political parties.”
He said issues about how the SNP handled things such as whistleblowing and concerns about party finances are matters for the SNP itself, and said the party has “completely changed the governance”.
“What we are focused on is making sure that the governance we’ve got in place now delivers what it needs to, which it is doing, and taking part in the inquiry that parliament voted for yesterday, into all political parties, which I think is a correct way to approach this,” he added.
