Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was arrested on Sunday (Jun 11), the BBC and Sky reported, after Police Scotland said a 52-year-old woman was in custody and being questioned as part of its investigation into the Scottish National Party’s funding.

The police investigation is looking at what happened to more than £600,000 (S$1 million) raised by Scottish independence campaigners in 2017, which was supposed to have been ring-fenced but may have been used for other purposes.

“Nicola Sturgeon has today, Sunday 11th June, by arrangement with Police Scotland, attended an interview where she was to be arrested and questioned,” a spokesperson for Sturgeon said.

“Nicola has consistently said she would cooperate with the investigation if asked and continues to do so.”

It is the third arrest in the probe, which is sending shockwaves through Scotland’s political system.

Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was arrested as part of the probe in April.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

Murrell has long faced questions over the alleged diversion of donations that were meant to support its drive for Scottish independence.

He also failed to declare a personal loan to the SNP of more than £100,000, which could breach laws on political funding transparency.

He was later released without charge pending further investigation.

Party treasurer Colin Beattie was also arrested in April and later released.

“A 52-year-old woman has today, Sunday 11 June, 2023, been arrested as a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party,” Police Scotland said in a statement on Twitter. “The woman is in custody and is being questioned by Police Scotland detectives.”

The arrest of Sturgeon, who stepped down earlier this year, is deeply embarrassing for the SNP, which campaigns to end Scotland’s three century political union with England.

“These issues are subject to a live police investigation. The SNP have been cooperating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so however it is not appropriate to publicly address any issues while that investigation is ongoing,” an SNP spokesperson said.

Sturgeon, Scotland’s longest serving leader of its semi-autonomous government, caught the political world by surprise when she announced her resignation in February, saying she had become too divisive to lead her country to independence.

While the investigation is still unfolding and nobody has been charged with wrongdoing, Sturgeon’s arrest caps a period of turmoil for the SNP. It casts a shadow over a formidable figure whose party gripped Scottish politics on her watch and significantly influenced the outcome of UK elections.

She has been one of Britain’s most popular politicians in recent years, challenging successive Conservative UK prime ministers over the era’s most totemic issues, from austerity measures to Brexit to the handling of the pandemic. Her departure came as she tried and failed to force the government in London to permit another referendum on independence.

The police investigation – and its dramatic fallout – has left her successor, Humza Yousaf, struggling to unite the SNP after a divisive leadership contest. His ability to get the party back on track will be tested at the next general election.

In a speech to the Scottish Parliament on Apr 18, Yousaf set out what he called a “fresh start” focused on reducing poverty, supporting business and harnessing the opportunities of net-zero green polities to boost the economy.

According to John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, the SNP’s travails could benefit the UK’s main opposition Labour Party as it tries to claw back popularity in Scotland and oust Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tories in a general election due by January 2025.

In 2019, when Conservative leader Boris Johnson won a majority in Westminster, the SNP took 48 of Scotland’s 59 districts. The SNP, the third-largest party in the UK House of Commons, still had a significant poll lead in Scotland after Sturgeon’s resignation and the investigation become public. A Survation survey taken from Mar 29 to Apr 3 put the SNP at least eight points ahead of Labour, based on voting intentions for the UK election.

The SNP has weathered scandal before. In March 2021, Sturgeon was embroiled in a bitter dispute with her predecessor and former mentor, Alex Salmond, over the handling of sexual harassment allegations and whether she broke the ministerial code. She went on to win big again in Scottish parliamentary elections two months later, and used that mandate to reinforce her push for an independence referendum. REUTERS, AFP, BLOOMBERG