The Truth Does Out
Sometimes you have to wait a while for people to catch up.
But patience is everything, readers.
All things, we hope, come to those who wait.
The SNP tried all sorts of excuses. First up, in February 2020, immediately after Wings had broken the story that “hundreds of thousands of pounds from two supposedly “ringfenced” fundraisers for independence have instead vanished into the hungry maw of the party’s seat-winning machine”, was a simple, classic flat denial: “it’s categorically not true”. The very suggestion was “utter nonsense”.
But since it WAS true – and obviously true, all anyone had to do was take the briefest look at the accounts and notice the startling absence of £482,000 that should have been there – that one couldn’t last.
In October of the same year, after the SNP’s accounts were published and we returned to the story, the party treasurer tried something slightly subtler: the money was still there, but it was invisible, and anyone saying otherwise was a conspiracy theorist.
That one was just too silly to survive very long, so in early 2021 they came up with a wizard wheeze: to prove they had the money, they were going to spend it, despite the fact that there was no second referendum to campaign for.
More pertinently, as Wings immediately pointed out, the cunning scheme was rendered somewhat implausible by the fact that everyone could see they didn’t have the money to spend, and were in fact just planning to re-label their normal spending as being from the indy fund in order to pretend they’d used it for its intended purpose.
The plan duly collapsed catastrophically as the head of the “taskforce” resigned in the same week as the treasurer stood down in protest at not being allowed to see the books so that he could do his job.
(Biagi enigmatically described the role as the “worst job ever” before being abruptly silenced by being given a mysteriously non-specific sinecure as a “Chief Of Staff” in the House Of Commons, and was later rewarded with a lucrative but low-profile job – paying anywhere between £80,000 and £116,000 – as a Special Adviser to the First Minister, which he still holds.)
So in June 2021 they gave up on trying to be clever and went back to straight-up denial: there was simply NO missing money.
John Swinney was clear: specifically asked if the money had been diverted to other purposes, he replied “Not to my knowledge, no”.
The money definitely wasn’t missing, they just couldn’t show you it, because secret important reasons. They could if they wanted to, they just didn’t want to.
But it definitely existed. Also they might need some more soon.
But once again, the denials were inconvenienced by the unhelpful fact that the money visibly and stubbornly continued to be very much missing from the party accounts. So at the same time they tried a new tack: admitting to having spent some of it – specifically around £52,000, or less than 8%.
But still the awkward questions persisted, so a year later they briefly tried confusing people by upping the figure to £253,000 (while intriguingly also increasing the total that had been raised and ring-fenced by £70,000), and insisted that there was still £488,000 of the imaginary fund available to spend.
But there wasn’t. The party’s actual bank balance was £343,000 lower than that, so nobody but the super-gullible was buying it.
Then in 2023, just days after Nicola Sturgeon’s dramatic and unexpected resignation as First Minister, they suddenly pivoted back to straight denial for a third time, hiding behind the need to avoid commenting on a live police investigation (a favourite trick of John Swinney’s, ironically).
And as far as we can recall (do please correct us in the comments if we’ve missed any further twists) that continued to be the official SNP position until today, when the poor suffering cat was finally released from the bag.
It has taken the SNP almost six and a half years to finally grudgingly admit what was indisputably obvious in 2020 to anyone with functioning eyes. And Swinney, who was either Deputy First Minister or actual First Minister for almost all of that time, can’t pretend that he didn’t understand the question.
He knows what “ring-fenced” money is and what can and can’t be done with it.
He knows fine well that more than just SNP supporters donated to the fund.
So he can neither morally nor legally use the money for general “SNP objectives”, which might be directly opposed to their interests (eg advancing the SNP cause in a general election against the parties those people might support).
Not to mention the rather more serious consequence, which is that his admission today unavoidably implicates him (and the rest of the SNP leadership since 2017) in direct, deliberate criminal fraud against thousands of ordinary Scots.
Because even if – and this is a VERY big stretch indeed – the SNP didn’t initially intend to spend the ring-fenced money on something else, they knew that they weren’t allowed to just help themselves to it later. Either way, this is severely criminal activity.
If you or we, readers, swiped an SSPCA collecting tin from a shop counter with 50 quid in it, we’d find ourselves hauled up in front of a beak in double-quick time, but apparently if you heist 700 grand (and then let your CEO spend it on £3,500 silver wine coasters and robot lawnmowers) you’re fine.
There has as yet been no sort of explanation forthcoming from either Police Scotland or the Crown Office for the mystery of why after five years of investigation nobody has been charged with the crime that actually triggered Operation Branchform (which then branched off into a separate embezzlement inquiry).
We have prima facie evidence that a crime has been committed (money has been obtained under demonstrably false pretences). We have the suspects to hand. We have the motive (the SNP was skint and needed the money). We have an admission from the suspects that the stolen items have been disposed of (spent). Even in a country as hopelessly, abjectly corrupt as Scotland, that ought to be sufficient to see someone in a dock.
At a very minimum, this fund should lead to “Honest John” Swinney’s early retirement. But he was not the prime mover in this sleazy business, and nor are mere resignations remotely enough to satisfy the demands of justice.
The arrogance of Swiney is breathtaking…
The SNP has poisoned the well, shat the bed, whatever you want to call it… they’ve killed Indy for decades!
I gave money to a ring-fenced campaign that at no point indicated that the money would be used for a single political party to actively campaign not only for its own benefit, but actively against a party of which I was a member.
I would strongly suggest those of a mind to do so write to the SNP, demand their ring fenced donations for a referendum campaign or household guide be returned. Inform the fraudsters that if such is not forthcoming that you will pursue them through your Sheriff Court via the “Simple Procedure”:
link to scotcourts.gov.uk
Come on Police Scotland, what are you waiting for? You now have an admission of theft of £667,000 worth of donations. What more do you need to stir yourself and act? If COPFS corruptly try to block you on this one it must be time for the public to have access to what data they have been given, starting with the content of the dossier you sent them on Sturgeon on which they declined to press charges.
Its time to end the coruuption in the Scottish legal system whic the Sturgeon regime fostered.
“Its time to end the coruuption in the Scottish legal system”
Naw.
That ship has sailed. It won’t be returning for another 5 years.
There’s nothing being exposed here that most savvy Scots haven’t known about for years. Over those years, we could have organised, we could have created new parties, we could have voted for these new parties and new politicians determined to sweep the stables clear.
We did SFA. Fundamentally, we never gave a shit. Four weeks ago, we trooped into the polling booths to vote for our familiar tribes.
I predict we’ll do SFA for the next 5 years too.
Happy to be proved wrong, but if all the posts calling for some other cant to do something are typical (hint: they are), then I’m right.
So, they get away with embezzling the general public with zero consequences?
Is that really the case?
Naw.
SNP members aren’t the general public in Scotland.
Neither are Indy supporters. They amount to a bit less than half of the general public in Scotland.
Why let the truth get in the way of another shite post, eh, SP?
Using money donated by members of the public for a particular reason and spending it on other things without the express permission of those donors is embezzlement.
Ex President-No its not embezzlement. It is fraud. Based on fraudulent misrepresentation.
DECEPTION !
Even though we’ve known this to have been the case for some time now, it still comes as a shock.
Why did the ‘unionist controlled’ Electoral Commission not make enquiry into this, and then liaise with Police regarding it?
Very much the dog that isn’t barking…. almost as if the SNP – in its current form – is a Unionist organisation.
The timing of this, coinciding as it does with John Swinneys rather feeble request for another Referendum is unlikely to be accidental.
I predict John will fall on his early retirement sword and make way for the new broom, Flynn… another troughing, empty suit.
And the game will continue, and both votes stupid will fall for it all over again. There will probably be another fund raiser.
“the SNP – in its current form – is a Unionist organisation”
That is what postcolonial theory tells us, which explains why the colonial establishment protect it; but the movement must cast it aside because it acts as a barrier to liberation:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
If all of our Scottish politicians, judiciary and journalists were as much on their brief as you Stu, Scotland would be happily independent today!
It feels like you are in heaven right now, and most of us are loving it!!
Thank you, Stu
Can I just say:
link to scottishlegal.com
What is more interesting is the BBC and MSM inability to ask direct questions and push for an answer.
Why do unionists continually miss an open goal. One could be forgiven for thinking they did’t want these people to go.
“Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake”.
(A bastardised version of a quote attributed to Bonaparte).
It’s very easy for you to prove your suspicions, Shug.
Just list all the charismatic, competent, principled, honest, driven, Scottish politicians whose meteoric rise to office has been stymied by the dead beats and crims squatting in the HR Cabinet.
I’m guessing you’ll name JC and then dry up.
It’s because they’re Globalists not Unionists.
The union is non-existent, Mark.
You can’t have a group named for supporting something that doesn’t exist. Not even in Scotland, where logic is regarded as a foreign import that we neither want nor need.
Try to keep up!
Nice to see an albeit very brief mention of Rev Campbell in the BBC article:
‘In October 2020, Wings Over Scotland blogger Stuart Campbell complained that the independence fund had “vanished” into the “party machine”.
He noted that in the previous year’s accounts the SNP had £97,000 in the bank and net assets of £272,000.
That led to speculation that the fund contributed to general party expenses, such as the 2017 general election.’
It also mentions the fact ‘The SNP’s long-standing auditors also quit in September 2023 – six months before Murrell was first arrested’.
And I have curtailed the following quotation:
‘Swinney said last week he was “not conscious”‘.
So that’s it then. Just like that. Chief bullshitter employs usual word salad weasly verbage to say in a helluva roundabout way, that the ‘ring-fenced’ referendum fund no longer exists as that money has been spent. I’ve had it with these fuckwits.
Of course one would have thought that there have to be consequences. Surely COPFS have to act now? Well, apart for viewers in Scotland that is, where clearly the Crown Office have been in cahoots with the governing party all along and still are.
So at this point, if there are no consequences, the British State must again come into the frame. I for one don’t believe that the Crown Office are independent in Scotland within a UK context and not answerable to or are being controlled by a higher authority i.e. the UK government.
Is there such a thing as “number blindness”? Like “word blindness” – dyslexia?
It’s surely disgraceful to hound people just because they’re neuro-diverse.
Yes, dyscalculia.
Thanks, Karen.
By the logic of Scotland’s very own Hate Crimes Act (still un-repealed, despite the election only 4 weeks ago in which we could have voted for parties pledging to repeal it – that would be if any Scot actually gave a shit), then it’s a crime to diss any Scot self-identifying as suffering from dyscalculia.
And for true sufferers – well – which part of being progressive don’t we understand? Our Scottish parliament leads the world in celebrating the unique contributions of the differently abled.
Mothers of young children don’t know if they are women, FFS. And they get returned to office too! Who wants to listen to the regressive gammons earnestly counting their bawbees?
Are we to throw away our mould-breaking progressive principles over a few hundred thousand quid?
They’re stupid. How would they know any difference.
We had a special classroom for those kids. They would get crayons and stuff.
Crayons are useless by themselves. Sock puppets are needed to demonstrate how they work.
If Swinney has the unmitigated gall to wear a Scotland top when he runs away to America to watch McTominay and the rest of the boys I swear I’ll… I’ll… Ach, I’ll just get pisht as usual.
This is Organised Crime. Don’t Police Scotland have special powers in dealing with such crime gangs?
Criminal charges need to be brought to those who have made false statements regarding the Independence fund, like wings said this wasn’t a donate to the SNP it was for a pacific reason and its that reason you would have had Labour, Lib-Dem and Tory supporters who donated money to a Independence referendum and nothing else and certainly not for the SNP to win an election.
If the SNP had been honest and said we need money for the party to survive or Independence is dead who wouldn’t have donated £50 or more. But instead the SNP turned there back on Scotland in 2015 and just used Independence as a means to win power and obtain money by fraud, who else can you put this.
For those of us who have been banging on about the SNP since 2015 will remember the slogan “Lets make Westminster work for Scotland” it was at this point I knew Independence under Sturgeon was dead.
SNP asking for probe into whether Douglas Alexander broke ministerial code. I fucking as you, they’ve just stole 600K from Indy supporters and there worried if DA has broke the ministerial code.
What incentive does Swinney have to tell the truth?
The SNP is built on lies and fraud. They got returned to power after a decade of lies and fraud.
For the SNP insiders, lying has gotten them the perks of office, and no prison-time downside.
Expect more lies and evasions, though after the Murrell plea, somewhat better evasions.
If we had voted SNP1 and Alba2. Hmm
It’s either Sturgeons pettiness and hatred for Salmond.
Or
They never wanted Indy.
Narcissist or 5th columnist, will we ever know?
I don’t trust Swinney one iota. When Nicola had to excuse herself who takes over, well her deputy. Hmm. No notes of attendees at the meetings, Swinney was complicit. We all know how small organisations work. Think they didn’t know. Awa’ and boil yer heid if ye dae
Another excellent piece of journalism setting out fraud perpetrated on people who were enticed into giving donations to a faux appeal.
This article lays bare the the complicity of the Sturrell Gang and its senior team. The article lays it all out and it is a It is a matter that should have gone to court. But it didn’t.
That the COPFS has done nothing to bring those involved to trial is a dark dark stain on the justice system in Scotland. Frankly, the COPFS are exposed as being no different from drug dealers or child exploitation merchants. Rotten, absolutely rotten. Folks can have no trust, no faith faith whatsoever in what masquerades as justice system in Scotland. Lawless Scotland. That is where we are.
Thanks again Rev Stu for an excellent well presented article.
And let’s not forget; while they were doing everything possible to avoid being held to account for a something that they definitely did do, on a parallel track they were doing everything possible to imprison a man for stuff that he definitely did not do.
We really are dealing with scumbags of the lowest order.
The police need to ring-fence and deal with this properly or they too will be woven into the accounts of ordinary people and held in utter contempt alongside SNP politicians.
The accounts were handed out at NEC meetings. Even those of us who aren’t accountants could see that there was £600k missing.
Every single person who was handed those accounts should be prosecuted for either being complicit in the embezlement and/or being aware that donated funds were not being used for the purpose for which they were donated. That is fraud. The NEC must be held jointly and a severally liable. Same applies to every office bearer.
How about a crowd funder for legal action against Swinney and his cronies to be run by one of the most reliable and trustworthy people in the movement, the Rev. I would chip in.
Those scumbags have destroyed any chance of me seeing independence in my lifetime.
Wings, Robin Mcalpine is in total agreement with you regarding the above.
Any SNP member could make a formal complaint about Sturgeon not being charged, which could bring about a new police inquiry and charges.
Also today Scottish government has been found in contempt in by the court regarding the Salmond files and it looks like the case will go ahead.
I would have a read of below, it isn’t happy news for Swinney or Sturgeon.
link to robinmcalpine.org
link to scotsman.com
Great links.
“The biggest problem the opposition has is working out which of these endless vulnerabilities to attack [Swinney] on.
Sturgeon poisoned the SNP. Swinney refused to drive it to the doctor. It may be their political epitaphs”
Their personal epitaphs too.
If Swinney had any sence he’d realize Sturgeon has played him for a fool and he’s played being the fool so well. Lets be honest how can Sturgeon be upset with john when he’s been the perfect moron. Even Angus Robertson didn’t take on the roll of FM, now we know why.
John if you wanted to safe the SNP and yourself you’d ask the police to look into Sturgeon personally while she was FM and distance yourself from her entirely.
Some years ago, I was a trustee of a small international charity. We put out a special appeal for incubators for a hospital we supported in a country in Africa. The money was handed over to our partners on the ground there. A new emergency had come in and they used the money to fund something else – equally valid, and something we had funded before, but not what this money had been raised for. When we found out, as trustees we were left with no option, but to replace the money that they had misused with our money to honour the pledges of the people who had given money for incubators. You cannot collect money for one thing, and use it for something else.
The police are going to look even more suspect if they don’t act now.
If Swinney is saying that the money has been spent, then it must have been spent in the past week or so, because Alyn Smith claimed it was still there on Debate Night last week.
I’m beginning to think someone in the SNP is lying!
Lying?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Seems like only 4 weeks since Scotland went to the polls and put the SNP and Swinney into Scotland’s driving seat for 5 more years.
Actually, it is only 4 weeks.
Some people said at the time that the decision to postpone the Murrell verdict until after the election stank.
And so it bloody obviously did.
Here’s an idea. Let’s push to get the election declared null and void owing to corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the Scottish establishment.
Scotland shouldn’t have to put up with another 5 years of these crims, deviants and chancers calling the shots.
Let’s campaign for another HR GE so we can sling the whole damn lot of them out on their arses.
Hatey, you are a love! That’s the best idea ever, and demonstrably justified. C’mon folks let’s do it. Perhaps the Rev could organize it, given his amazing communication skills.
The independence referendum fighting fund of £666,953 would be worth circa £903,000 today if adjusted for inflation, or circa £839,000 if it had been placed into a high-interest bank account.
Courts do not adjust defrauded sums for inflation using retail or consumer price indices; instead, they restore a party’s position by awarding statutory judicial interest on top of the original principal amount. In Scotland, the standard judicial interest rate for court decrees is 8% per annum simple interest, meaning the courts would increase the value of the £666,953 fund by up to £401,000 in interest, bringing a total court award to as much as £1,068,000 in the event that successful legal action were taken.
The SNP leadership is a crime syndicate.
I inserted the word “leadership “ Into the original sentence aboveout if respect for many decent members who have been ripped off by these crooks.
Irish proverb:
“Filleann feall ar an fheallaire”
(“Betrayal returns to the betrayer”)
link to youtube.com
Some would say tautologies and circular truisms are not subject to opinion. Could it be that a pathogen is pathogenic? Might it be impossible not to know that the transduction of a functioning pathogen behind the lines, in inherently uncontrollable final numbers – the manufacturing outsourced to the individual – would increase mortality? Maybe this would look like record excess deaths. With big blips in cohorts previously demonstrated immune.
Well – what next? I wonder if Sturgeon will give any more interviews now this has landed on the lap of interviewers, ‘John Swinney now admits what was obvious on the face of the accounts all along, that the ring-fenced money was spent for SNP purposes, not for the purposes for which you raised it, which was an Independence Referendum. Why did you deny that the £667,000 had been spent and assist your husband from preventing the NEC from investigating what had happened to that money?’
The irony here surely is that, had the SNP heedies simply owned up when the lack of ring fenced independence campaign funding in the accounts was first queried, there would probably have been no police inquiry, Peter Murrell could still be Chief Executive of the SNP and still siphoning off funds.
As one of the complainers in 2021 this is mind boggling. The complaint was about the ring fenced fund specifically as was my statement.
This is probably quite a sensible admission for John Swinney to make given;
a) it’s obviously and clearly true;
b) the police/COPFS have considered the legal issues around this and decided not to charge anyone; and
c) the political/reputational issues can be landed squarely on Peter Murrell.
It also probably draws a line under the questions around this fund, which otherwise might have dragged on.
Since you have been the one asking Stu, and we know how Sturgeons cabal love to slander anyone who challenges them. Would it be worthwhile trawling back through all the things said about you to see if there’s anything you can raise a legal action about, for denigration of your character.
Make them go to court or pay you an out of court settlement.
Swinney has been making the really stupid claim that since everyone knows the SNP are a party who pushes for independence, anything spent by them from the referendum fund was spent the correct way. I don’t for a minute believe the Swnney doesn’t understand that the SNP can’t decide what to spend ‘ring fenced’ money on when it was specificaly raised for a ‘referendum’ so he must be speaking to the more gullible members of the SNP and trying to keep them on the SNPs side. When a party starts firefighting to keep its ‘low information’ supporters on board, that party is in a bad way.