NICOLA Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell should both be suspended from the SNP, the Scottish Tory chairman has said.
Craig Hoy, an MSP on the South Scotland list, told the BBC that it would be “right and proper” for the SNP’s former leader and chief executive to face a suspension amid a police probe into the party’s finances.
Hoy made frequent reference to a leaked video showing Sturgeon warning senior members of the SNP to be “very careful” of raising concerns about the party’s finances.
The Tory MSP said: “I think Nicola Sturgeon has very big questions to answer, and I think having seen that video at the weekend, I think it is only right and proper that the SNP would suspend both Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell so that they can fully investigate those assurances that turned out to be false.”
Asked if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to wait until the investigations have concluded, Hoy said: “No, I think the SNP has done this in the past. While people are being investigated, they are or they have been suspended from the party.
“Nobody’s asking for the [former] first minister to leave parliament for example, but what we are saying is these allegations are serious enough, particularly that very damning video we saw at the weekend, … for Nicola Sturgeon to be suspended while these issues are fully investigated both by the SNP, but also let’s not forget also by the police.”
Appearing on the BBC’s Lunchtime Live show, Hoy was also asked if any politician being investigated for any kind of financial impropriety should be suspended until there is an outcome.
It had just emerged minutes before Hoy’s appearance that Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (below) is being probed by Westminster's standards watchdog for an alleged failure to declare financial interests.
Hoy said: “No, no. I think what we’re seeing here is that there is a threshold and this threshold in my view … has been passed in this instance, but you wouldn’t want to have a blanket position on that. That wouldn’t be credible.”
Tory MSPs including Murdo Fraser and Pam Gosal, as well as Jackie Baillie, the deputy leader of Scottish Labour, have also called on First Minister Humza Yousaf to suspend both Sturgeon and Murrell from the SNP.
However, speaking on Monday morning, Anas Sarwar declined to back his deputy’s position, insisting it was a “matter for Nicola Sturgeon and a matter for the SNP”.
Pressed, the Scottish Labour leader said “people would expect Jackie Baillie to say something negative about the SNP”, but noted the position of SNP MP Joanna Cherry.
Writing in The National last week, Cherry said Murrell was “very lucky” not to have been suspended from the SNP, saying it is not “fair” or “in accordance with the principles of natural justice” that others have not been granted the same “leniency”.
The KC pointed to the likes of Michelle Thomson MSP, who did see their membership suspended due to a police probe.
Sarwar (above) suggested Yousaf should listen to SNP politicians like Cherry if he wanted to be “consistent with the rules”, but insisted he was focused on “the positive alternative”.
Sarwar added: “If they are going to have any by-elections, if there are people giving in resignations, I would say the whole lot of them should resign. Let’s have a full election across this country and let people choose.”
Published by the Sunday Mail, the video of Sturgeon which has led to the suspension calls appears to show the then first minister addressing a meeting of the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).
She told the NEC the party had “never been in a stronger financial position than it is now”, adding: “I’m not going to get into the details … but just be very careful about suggestions that there are problems with the party’s finances because we depend on donors to donate – there are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances and all of us need to be careful about suggesting that there is.”
There has been further suggestion that Sturgeon may step down as an MSP amid the controversy. However, former Westminster leader and key Sturgeon ally Ian Blackford dismissed this as “idle speculation”.
“Absolutely not, there’s no reason for [the SNP to suspend Sturgeon] at all,” Blackford told BBC Radio Scotland on Monday.
“I think that’s some of our opponents politicking, really, in this context,” he added.
Blackford said there was “nothing which was in any way untoward” in the leaked video, adding: “What the first minister was reflecting on was the ability of the SNP to conduct itself as an organisation, having the financial resources in order to fight elections and to support its members.”
