Nicola Sturgeon should consider voluntarily suspending her Scottish National party membership until the police investigation into its finances is over, a former leadership candidate has said.
Ash Regan, a former minister who came third in the race to succeed Sturgeon as SNP leader, said there was a clear precedent for parliamentarians to stand down as party members if they were under police investigation.
“Nicola should perhaps consider voluntarily resigning her SNP membership until this is cleared up,” Regan, the MSP for Edinburgh Eastern who quit as a minister in protest at Sturgeon’s gender recognition reforms, told BBC Radio Scotland on Monday morning.
If Sturgeon did not voluntarily step down, Humza Yousaf, her successor as party leader, should consider suspending her, Regan added. “The leadership needs to think about taking decisive action.”
Sturgeon was arrested and questioned “as a suspect” on Sunday by Police Scotland detectives as part of their investigation into the SNP’s finances after a series of complaints were made about the party’s handling of more than £600,000 in donations for an independence campaign.
On Sunday night, shortly after being released without charge, Sturgeon said “in the strongest possible terms” that she was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.
“Innocence is not just a presumption I am entitled to in law,” she said in a short statement on Twitter. “I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.”
Yousaf, who was Sturgeon’s favoured successor as party leader and first minister, has refused to suspend Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband, and the party’s then-treasurer Colin Beattie MSP, after they were arrested and questioned as part of the same inquiry.
Like Sturgeon, they were released without charge and Yousaf said therefore there should be a presumption of innocence.
However, the leadership’s critics argue there have been numerous examples of MPs and MSPs under investigation or accused of significant wrongdoing being suspended by the party or their voluntary resignations being welcomed by party leaders.
Angus MacNeil, the MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and an ally of Sturgeon’s predecessor, Alex Salmond, tweeted: “This soap opera has gone far enough, Nicola Sturgeon suspended others from the SNP for an awful lot less! Time for political distance until the investigation ends either way.”
His intervention infuriated other SNP parliamentarians. James Dornan, the SNP MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, suggested MacNeil should be kicked out of the party for his remarks. He tweeted that what would “help the cause of independence is get rid of the ‘too big to discipline’ MPs” such as MacNeil.
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Regan, whose leadership campaign was run by one of Salmond’s former advisers, said there had to be some accountability. “Accountability in these types of situations is really important. Nicola is not doubt considering this at the moment,” Regan said.
“There is precedent in the party for people who have been involved in issues of this type to resign from the party, voluntarily suspending their membership until this can be cleared up. I think if she did that, that would reaffirm her commitment to the principles of the party.”
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said this challenge was a test of Yousaf’s strength as party leader. It was clear Sturgeon should be suspended, Baillie told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I think we all anticipated that at some point Nicola Sturgeon would be arrested for questioning about the SNP finances because she is, of course, the third signatory on the accounts,” she said.
“The question in my mind, given all this chaos, given the kind of secrecy and cover-up that has been the hallmark of how the SNP operate, is whether Humza Yousaf, the current first minister, is indeed strong enough to suspend her and protect the party.”
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2023-06-12 10:15:00Z
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