Make a statement on SNP crisis, Scottish Tories to demand in Holyrood debate

Humza Yousaf could be forced to make a statement in the Scottish Parliament on the crisis engulfing the SNP if a Scottish Conservative motion succeeds on Wednesday.

First Minister Humza Yousaf speaking to the media, after he visited a nursery at Crookston Castle Primary School, Glasgow

In a debate set to be led by Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, MSPs will be asked to vote on whether the government should provide a statement to Holyrood “about the governance of the SNP”.

This, the motion states, is necessary due to them being “matters of public interest” and something that “should be properly scrutinised and debated in the national parliament”.

It follows attempts by Mr Ross to bring up the crisis at First Minister’s Questions in recent weeks, only to be told by the Presiding Officer that questions must relate to the Scottish Government and matters it is responsible for.

The First Minister has faced weeks of difficulty following the arrest and subsequent release of Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP and husband of Nicola Sturgeon, and Colin Beattie, who stood down as SNP treasurer following his arrest and release.

Both arrests were in connection with an ongoing police investigation into the party’s finances following complaints about how £600,000 of crowdfunded donations were spent by the party.

The motion is highly unlikely to succeed due to it requiring either the Scottish Greens or a significant backbench SNP rebellion to back it.

However, it will likely rub salt into the faction-based wounds that run deep in the SNP and that have come to the fore since Ms Sturgeon’s resignation.

The motion also criticises the Scottish Government’s record of transparency and calls on it to end its access to pre-release statistics and list public officials who earn more than the First Minister.

Despite the Scottish Conservatives refusing to publish their membership numbers, it also “condemns the SNP for its lack of candour about its membership and governance”.