Nicola Sturgeon may be leaving Holyrood next year, but the spectre of Operation Branchform isn’t going away any time soon. It transpires that Scotland’s former first minister is still under investigation by the police over the probe into the SNP’s finances and funding – with the four-year investigation running up costs of over £2 million. And it hasn’t wrapped up yet…
The SNP’s former Dear Leader and the party’s ex-treasurer Colin Beattie remain under investigation after their arrests in 2023, as the National reports today. Police Scotland told Mr S last October that their probe had finished, adding that: ‘on 9 August 2024, we presented the findings of the investigation so far to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and we await their direction on what further action should be taken.’ Talk about dragging it out, eh?
The news that the probe, um, hasn’t progressed comes as a Freedom of Information request revealed that a whopping £2.1 million had been spent on the investigation from its start date up until the end of January this year. More than that, the million-pound sum ‘does not include pension contributions’, according to the Scottish Daily Mail. It’s an increase of almost £1 million in 12 months, with a previous FOI showing that, at the beginning of 2024, £1.3 million had been splurged on the scandal.
There has been a lot of speculation about what Sturgeon may get up to after her resignation from frontline politics after almost three decades in the job. But with the police probe hanging over her head, it seems like she can’t yet bank on a peaceful retirement…
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