Why are some SNP figures already angry at John Swinney? Euan McColm explains

Senior party figures ‘astonished’ by Swinney’s attack on parliamentary verdict on Matheson’s expenses

In three decades of covering politics, I’ve never seen a party in such a deep crisis.

The SNP – just a blink of the eye ago, a seemingly unstoppable dominant force in Scottish politics – is mired in scandal, bitterly divided over strategy, and now fighting a General Election campaign for which it was wholly unprepared.

And, less than three weeks after he succeeded Humza Yousaf as party leader, John Swinney has infuriated colleagues he promised to unite.

“We are,” says one veteran strategist, “So f****d. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.”

The backlash against Swinney in SNP ranks started on Thursday, shortly after First Minister’s Question Time, during which he had attacked and smeared the disciplinary process that led to the recommendation former health secretary Michael Matheson should be heavily sanctioned for wrongly claiming £11,000 in expenses and then lying about the matter.

To say some of the First Minister’s most senior colleagues were astonished would be quite the understatement.

The facts of the Matheson case are perfectly straightforward. When he was challenged – by both parliamentary officials and journalists – about his £11k claim, he insisted the cost had been run up while using his parliament-provided iPad to work during a family holiday in Morocco. Then, after weeks of squirming and evasion during which Yousaf repeatedly insisted his colleague had done nothing wrong, Matheson admitted his sons had run up the eye-watering bill while streaming football matches.

Even then, Matheson refused to do the honourable thing and stand down as health secretary. In fact, he clung on until February when it became clear a Holyrood investigation into his actions was going to be heavily critical.

The Scottish Parliament’s standards committee last week recommended Matheson should be suspended from Holyrood for 27 days and docked 54 days’ worth of pay – a figure which roughly amounts to the £11k he wrongly claimed.

But, rather than supporting this entirely reasonable punishment, Swinney decided to go to bat for his utterly discredited colleague.

The First Minister launched his defence of Matheson on day one of the general election campaign, angering and baffling colleagues.

“If Michael cared about the SNP, he’d have accepted his punishment like a man,” says one nationalist parliamentarian.

In the week ahead, SNP MSPs will rally round Matheson, trying to block his deserved punishment while, on the streets of Scotland, the party’s general election candidates try to convince voters that their party hasn’t lost touch with their priorities.

It’s hardly surprising Swinney’s defence of Matheson has gone down so badly with colleagues, the smartest of whom are – understandably – very concerned that an ongoing police investigation – known as Operation Branchform – into the party’s finances could have serious, long-term implications for the Nats.

On Thursday, just hours after Swinney launched his defence of Matheson, Police Scotland confirmed it had sent a report about Peter Murrell – Nicola Sturgeon’s husband and the former SNP chief executive – to prosecutors. The timing could not have been worse and some of Swinney’s colleagues think he has been incredibly reckless.

“The thing is,” one general election candidate tells me, “that the police investigation’s been ticking away like a time bomb for more than a year. Every single day, I’ve gone to work wondering if this was the day someone else would be arrested or charged. You’re constantly worrying that something you say or do is going to blow up in your face because the cops have issued another statement. And exactly that has happened to John. Imagine trying to defend Michael, even after he’s admitted he shouldn’t have claimed the cash, and then the cops reminding everyone that they’re in the middle of investigating allegations of fraud and embezzlement. It was a nightmare to watch it all on Thursday and after you’re, like, great now I’m going to have to go and tell people there’s no problem with Michael and he shouldn’t be punished. Well, f*** that.”

When the SNP was humiliated by Labour – which took more than half the vote – in last year’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, Yousaf admitted that the police investigation into his party had played its part in the result. How could he have done otherwise?

It's clear from conversations I've had with a number of veteran SNP figures – from politicians to former senior staff – that there's a growing fear Operation Branchform will have devastating consequences for the party. As one put it to me, no matter how the investigation ends, the ongoing drip of information is corroding the SNP brand. It’s equally clear that there’s frustration and anger about what appears to be Swinney’s failure to recognise just how much more damaging Operation Branchform stands to become.

“There seem to be some people, including John, apparently,” says one long-serving activist, “Who think the police investigation is something that’s going to pass and we’ll be fine. They’re not taking it seriously enough. The opposition aren’t saying anything about it just now because they can’t but does anyone think they’re not going to go to town on us when they can? Because, spoiler alert, we’d be doing that if the boot was on the other foot.”

With growing unease in SNP ranks about the long-term impact of the Police Scotland probe, many of Swinney’s colleagues believed he would rebuild the party’s reputation. Instead, the First Minister has made matters worse.

Until last week, Michael Matheson’s dodgy expenses claim was a matter of his personal probity. Swinney, for reasons still unfathomable, has decided – in the midst of his party’s greatest crisis – to make it a matter of the SNP’s integrity.

I wish him luck with that one.