After one of the longest, most expensive, highest profile investigations in Scottish history, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party (SNP) Peter Murrell now finds himself behind bars.
Yesterday, Murrell was sentenced to a total of five years and three months, and was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
Even Murrell’s own lawyer, John Scullion KC, remarked that the former SNP chief had become a “figure of public ridicule” and was “overwhelmed by feelings of embarrassment and shame”.
Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been jailed for five years and three months after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
Murrell, who’s the estranged husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, used the money to buy cars, kitchenware,… pic.twitter.com/J5zhslEcyl
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 23, 2026
The exposure of his corruption and embezzlement has dealt another hammer blow to the SNP’s public confidence and credibility. It is also tearing at the party from the inside, as the remaining members of the leadership clique face awkward questions around who knew what and when.
Guilty as sin
The facts are clear: Peter Murrell is guilty as sin. Hundreds of items – from pens and paper, to coffee machines and toilet seats, totalling over £400,000 – were all paid for with SNP members’ money, for the personal pleasure of the party’s top bureaucrat and husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
A selection of the (bizarre) purchases that Murrell made were collected by Sky News, and includes the following:
- £124,550 for a Niesmann and Bischoff Smove 7.4E motorhome;
- £57,500 towards the purchase of a Jaguar I-PACE car;
- £16,489 towards the purchase of a 9 Volkswagen Golf;
- £9,350.25 for two Bremont watches;
- £4,225 for a Starwalker World Time fountain pen;
- £3,231.90 for a Jura Giga 5 Cromo coffee machine;
- £1,199 for a Celestron 11069 NexStar 8SE computerised Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope;
- £247.42 for a PlayStation 3;
- £68.82 for two Ideal Standard toilet seats;
- £42.99 for Grand Theft Auto V.
Clearly, Murrell thought that this position of power entitled him to a life of luxury beyond even what could be afforded by the salary of a CEO, or a First Minister.
Watch as Peter Murrell is asked about a false invoice created for a Jaguar i-Pace where the car was labelled as ‘stage payment’ for SNP events which had to be postponed because of the pandemic pic.twitter.com/UW0VZ4wHau
— The National (@ScotNational) June 23, 2026
If we are to believe what has been said, neither his wife, nor the current First Minister John Swinney, nor anyone else in the SNP knew what Peter Murrell was up to.
To the contrary, Sturgeon tearfully protests that she and her husband had been “estranged”, and that she is the real victim in all of this deceit!
Either more is yet to be revealed – perhaps another scandalising memoir is on the cards – or Sturgeon has been studying The Sopranos to craft her defence.
The farce that was Operation Branchform, with its deliberately drawn-out and politically damaging investigation, has nonetheless cast a thick atmosphere of corruption around the SNP.
Spent force
Despite the party’s victory in the Scottish Parliament elections merely a month ago, they are looking like a spent force, dependent on an increasingly fragile social base.
‘The SNP and Nicola Sturgeon insist they knew nothing of Murrell’s offending. That may be enough for the criminal law. But politically, they have questions to answer here, too. How on earth did Murrell manage to get away with this for so long?
‘A leaked video from a meeting of… pic.twitter.com/4CAZAGeFGq
— The Herald (@heraldscotland) June 24, 2026
But because no other party is able to supplant them, the SNP have lingered and will linger in power, battered by the occasional scandal or controversy, until something can replace them.
The time is ripe for new political forces on the left and the right to break through: driven by the crisis of the existing establishment parties, the appeal of populist leaders, and a rapidly changing global context. The cosy Holyrood consensus that the SNP have sought to build around themselves will be shaken to pieces.
We stand for building a party of genuine opposition to the status quo, rooted in the working class. One armed with the perspective of a revolutionary struggle against all the corrupt, parasitic elite that squander public wealth on private luxury.
