“He lied like he was breathing.” That is how Allison Graham describes Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive who was jailed this week for five years and three months after stealing more than £400,000 from the party. Now she and fellow whistleblower Cynthia Guthrie are aiming at the man who runs the party today.
On Thursday, First Minister John Swinney told reporters at the Scottish Parliament he would not give them the apology they want. “I’ve apologised to party members who have got a legitimate interest in this – because they are the ones who had money stolen from them,” he said. “They’re the victims.” Pressed on whether that covered people who have since left the SNP, he repeated that the victims were members whose money Murrell took.
Six weeks on the committee
Graham and Guthrie sat on the SNP’s Finance and Audit Committee in early 2021, brought in by new treasurer Douglas Chapman MP alongside Frank Ross. All three quit within weeks. Both women told LBC the job was “a pantomime.”
Guthrie says the committee spotted money raised for independence campaigns that nobody could account for. She asked Murrell about roughly £700,000. His answer, she recalled: “He looked in the mid-distance and pointed and said ‘I can see it.’”
Graham likened the meetings to “watching a bad magician trying to distract you from things.” Ask when the financial year began, she said, and “we just got absolutely stonewalled.”
After their resignation statement that March, Graham says the reaction was hostile. She points to criticism from Nicola Sturgeon, who told members not to discuss party finances and said the books were healthy. “It felt very threatening to me personally because it was to close down what I had said,” Graham said.
Denial, they say
Swinney rejects the idea that Sturgeon or anyone senior bullied them. Guthrie was unmoved. She called his response not good enough and his refusal of an inquiry unsustainable, and she wants one led by a KC.
Swinney’s line is that Parliament has settled the matter. “The Parliament has decided there is not going to be an inquiry into these issues,” he said. “And it’s absolutely non-sensical for there to be an inquiry into the victim.”
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay went further in parliament. He called Swinney the “king of the SNP cover-up” and said he was “at the heart of the cover-up.” Swinney answered that the claims were “utterly and totally baseless,” pointing to the police investigation that preceded Murrell’s prosecution and to the governance changes he says he made after becoming leader.
Findlay’s reaction to the refusal was blunt: “As expected, no apology to the whistleblowers.”
Neither woman has turned against the cause. Both still back Scottish independence. But Guthrie rejects the idea that Murrell acted alone. “It’s not good enough to say he was a master criminal and everybody else was a victim,” she said, and Graham added that the problem was culture, not paperwork: “Governance is not just operational, it’s a culture.”
An SNP spokesperson said the party has reformed its governance and was itself a victim of Murrell’s crimes. Graham is not persuaded. “I have zero confidence this couldn’t happen again because they’ve learned nothing.”
Sources
- SNP whistleblowers break silence: 'It was a pantomime'
- Swinney hits back at 'baseless' claims of SNP 'cover-up' of Murrell's crimes
- John Swinney refuses to apologise to SNP whistleblowers over Murrell scandal
