Murrell faces grilling over Cambridge Analytica

● Angry SNP MPS want party chief to come to London to answer questions

Angry SNP MPS want to summon Nicola Sturgeon’s husband to Westminster to ask why they were not told about a meeting between the party and a controversial political consultancy accused of mining Facebook users’ data.

Peter Murrell, the SNP chief executive, faces being called to London to answer questions over the meeting in February 2016 between a contractor working for the nationalists and Cambridge Analytica.

SNP MPS were blindsided by the revelation during a Westminster committee hearing that the party had met the firm, which faces investigation in the UK and the US over its alleged conduct.

News of the meeting caused embarrassment after the SNP raised Conservative links with Cambridge Analytica.

According to reports, SNP HQ in Edinburgh failed to respond to requests for information for several hours after the committee appearance by Brittany Kaiser, a former Cambridge Analytica director.

There were angry recriminations at the SNP Westminster group meeting on Tuesday, with demands for Mr Murrell to give answers.

One source told a Sunday newspaper: “When Peter Murrell comes these issues will be raised by MPS in a very robust way…

“MPS have resolved that they

0 Peter Murrell is breing asked to explain an SNP meeting with Cambridge Analytica. can’t be placed in that situation again.”

Meanwhile, it was reported that the SNP’S representative met Julian Wheatland, chairman of Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL Group.

The meeting took place three months after it was announced that Cambridge Analytica was working for theleave.eubrexitcampaign.

Mr Wheatland is reported to have told colleagues that it was “about Brexit” and that the SNP wanted the UK to leave the EU “because if we get out, they get a chance at another [independence] referendum”.

An SNP spokesman said that the comments were “utter concoction and fantasy without a shred of basis in truth or fact”.