The SNP's head of media has dramatically resigned tonight in the latest twist in the party's increasingly fraught leadership race.
Murray Foote announced he had quit in response to a deepening row over the publication of SNP membership numbers.
He claimed to have acted in "good faith" when approached by a journalist last month who inquired how many members had recently quit the party.
The Sunday Mail, the Record's sister title, reported on February 12 that up to 30,000 people had cancelled their membership.
The story was subsequently dismissed as "drivel" in a tweet by Foote.
But the SNP finally admitted yesterday that its membership numbers had plummeted by 30,000 in the last two years.
Foote, a former editor of the Daily Record, said he had agreed a response to the Sunday Mail story after consulting with SNP bosses at the party's head office.
"Acting in good faith and as a courtesy to colleagues at party HQ, I issued agreed responses to media inquiries regarding membership," he said.
"It has subsequently become apparent there are serious issues with those responses.
"Consequently, I concluded this created a serious impediment to my role and I resigned my position with the SNP Group at Holyrood."
Following the Sunday Mail story, the SNP issued a statement to an independence-supporting newspaper in an attempt to discredit it.
An SNP spokesman told The National: "The 30,000 figure that was reported is not just flat wrong, it’s wrong by about 30,000.
"As the SNP clearly stated when asked, fewer than 300 members have left the party over the period and they have been replaced by the same number of new members.
"This story is both malicious and wholly inaccurate. Fortunately, few people are gullible enough to believe it."
But the party finally admitted its real membership number after pressure from leadership candidates Ash Regan and Kate Forbes.
The SNP disclosed the number of members - who will effectively decide who becomes the next First minister - was 72,186.
The total is down 31,698 from the last published count of 103,884 at the end of 2021, just over 14 months ago.
Lorna Hughes, editor of the Sunday Mail, said: "The culture of secrecy, spin and lies at the heart of Holyrood cannot continue.
"Something has gone badly wrong when journalists, whose very job is to hold government to account, are routinely misled, maligned and briefed against in a bid to hide the truth.
"Political editor John Ferguson's investigation, based on conversations with multiple sources, was entirely accurate.
"The Head of Communications at Holyrood may have been deceived by those in the party hierarchy over the figures.
"But the fact remains that we were fed a lie and a story was then planted in The National newspaper with a quote from an SNP spokesperson calling our exclusive "malicious and wholly untrue."
"This crossed a line."
Foote left the Record in 2018 and subsequently joined the SNP in February 2020.
An SNP spokesperson said: "Murray has been an outstanding head of press for the Holyrood Group and we thank him for his service.
"He has acted entirely in good faith throughout.
"The Party was asked a specific question about loss of members as a direct result of the GRR Bill and Indyref2. The answer given was intended to make clear that these two reasons had not been the cause of significant numbers of members leaving.
"The membership figure is normally produced annually and is not produced in response to individual media queries, including in this instance.
"In retrospect, however, we should not have relied on an understanding of people's reasons for leaving as the basis of the information given to Murray and, thereafter, the media.
"A new, modernised membership system is currently being developed for the party."
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