The Promise
This is the letter the SNP sent donors to the ringfenced 2017 fundraiser.
The terms are right there in the first sentence, and repeated several more times. The money will be “ring fenced for a future referendum”. It’s to “build up a sizeable war chest to fight the campaign when the time comes”. It’s to “ensure we are not outspent in the referendum campaign”.
There is no ambiguity in the email. There’s no mention of the SNP anywhere except in Jim Henderson’s email address. No suggestion whatsoever that the money could be used by the SNP for anything but a referendum campaign.
The terms were the same in the 2019 fundraiser.
That’s not just a bit of semantics. Spending in referendum campaigns is regulated entirely separately by the Electoral Commission to normal party spending. There are limits both for campaign organisations and, distinct from those, political parties (and others).
(In the 2014 indyref the allowances were based on each party’s share of the vote in the preceding Holyrood election – the SNP wouldn’t be allowed to spend as much now.)
So there are all kinds of reasons in law why the SNP isn’t allowed to just raise money for a referendum campaign but then fold it into its normal bank account and spend it on whatever it likes.
And after this site revealed in 2020 that the money had been blown, some angry donors asked for their contribution back. One of them was former SNP NEC member Allison Graham, who resigned in March 2021 on the basis that the party’s Finance & Audit Committee wasn’t being allowed to see the books and establish why the “ringfenced” cash was gone.
As you can see, she had the SNP bang to rights. And she got no argument.
The very same day, party fundraiser Jim Henderson (now retired), emailed her back to arrange repayment of the donation, which was duly done.
She was lucky. Previous refund requests had been refused on the basis (ironically) that the money was in a ring-fenced referendum fund and about to be used.
But the party seems to have realised after the balloon really went up in October 2020 that that kite wouldn’t fly any more.
Once again, this is rock-solid prima facie evidence of a serious crime, committed by those at the very top of the Scottish establishment and openly admitted, for which nobody has been held accountable. The BBC this week released extended interviews with both the Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland and Crown Agent John Logue of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (which we’ll be featuring in the next couple of days), but in over an hour of footage neither man came close to offering an even semi-coherent explanation for why nobody has been charged over the fundraiser frauds.
Our quest for answers, and for justice, continues. To that end, we would like to request that any readers who donated to either fundraiser and have not had their money refunded drop us an email via the Wings contact form. It’s time for action.
Very persuasive article-however I believe that a more fruitful area for investigation would be the millions which the Editor advised were set out in the SNP accounts as having been for ‘I.T.’ If that were the case then surely some at least of the hardware should be available still for inspection. Or were some or all of those sums trousered ?
A further area must surely be Misfeasance/Misconduct. It was strongly represented-and backed up with implicit threats-that the SNP was financially in apple-pie order. If (say) someone was in highest authority in a governing party and was a signatory to the accounts- and that person held out all was well when it was very much not- then that could only be through dishonesty or a wilful statement made in ignorance; either way the result was to mislead the party and the public with a view to future fundraising. At the very least an Inquiry should be set up outwith the Scottish legal system.
If theres a movie of the rise and fall of Nicola Sturgeon it should be called Hardface.
I joined the SNP after the 2014 referendum and quickly got a bad feeling after attending one of their branch meetings in Edinburgh. So Inever renewed my membership and thank goodness I never parted with any more money towards these thieving criminals.
I will never ever join a political party and go issue by issue.
Thanks Stu for exposing and fighting this. They simply cannot get away with this.
Anyone who said that the ring-fenced money was ‘woven through the accounts’ should be brought up on charges.
My husband was ruing the other day that we both had applied for, and received, a refund. But if a fundraiser is needed for legal action, we are in.
Why were you rueing the day?
When Johnston Carmichael (who were both the SNP’s accountants and my own company accountants) refused to endorse the SNP’s figures, I knew the writing was on the wall. Four years on, the writing is still there, but it needs to be read by someone with a higher authority than the Scottish COPFS. Does such an entity exist?