SNP chief ’s evidence to committee ‘unravelling’
THE SNP’s chief executive is facing more questions about the evidence he gave to a Holyrood inquiry last week.
Members of the committee probing how complaints about Alex Salmond were handled say Peter Murrell’s evidence is ‘unravelling’.
When he was grilled by MSPs, Mr Murrell, the husband of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, defended the SNP’s disciplinary processes, insisting they were ‘fairly robust’.
But the Herald on Sunday yesterday revealed a report by the SNP’s national secretary had said they were ‘overdue for reform’.
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, a member of the committee, said: ‘Every other sentence, he [Mr Murrell] contradicted himself, contradicted the First Minister, got something wrong or blatantly said something untrue. It was one blunder after another.
‘This latest unravelling of his story shows that he has gone to great lengths to cover up the SNP’s faili ngs. It has now emerged he defended conduct rules that he surely must know are not fit for purpose if he pays the slightest bit of attention to senior SNP staff.’
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said: ‘Having told the committee that the SNP disciplinary process was robust, he neglected to mention that his own party consider that it is in urgent need of reform.’
In an internal report last month, then-party national secretary Angus MacLeod said that, given the SNP’s membership surge in 2014 and the rise of social media usage, ‘a reevaluation of our disciplinary process’ is needed. He stated that a review of other areas of disciplinary policy was ‘long overdue’.
Last Tuesday, Mr Murrell said the SNP’s rules for dealing with conduct issues dated back to 2004, adding: ‘I say they are fairly robust to this day, and have stood the test of time.’
MSPs already want the SNP chief executive to appear in front of them again to clear up alleged ‘contradictions’ he made while under oath.
Mr Murrell first claimed that he had not known in advance about a meeting held between Miss Sturgeon and Mr Salmond at their marital home on April 2, 2018 – before admitting he was aware the day before that it would take place.
He also told the committee he had not been in his house at the time but later admitted he had arrived home while it was taking place.
Mr Murrell was quizzed over his involvement in a WhatsApp group set up by senior SNP officials. He denied knowledge of this and insisted he did not have the app. But it l ater emerged that his number was linked to a WhatsApp account. He clarified this, saying he has the app but does not use it.
The SNP said Mr Murrell had told the committee the party’s disciplinary processes ‘will be looked at’.
A spokesman added: ‘Angus was referring to complaints not breaching the code of conduct for members. So that may be disputes in local branches, but all member conduct complaints must go to the national secretary and only that post-holder presents the complaint to the disciplinary committee.’
IT WAS the faintest crease, there and gone again. As SNP chief executive Peter Murrell gave evidence to the Alex Salmond inquiry, a hairline fracture of contempt cleaved across his mouth.
Some committee members found his statements inconsistent, others incredible, and they said so, but Murrell was cool, unfazed, in control. Nicola Sturgeon was just as businesslike two days later at First Minister’s Questions. When the Scottish Conservatives’ Holyrood leader raised the matter, Sturgeon rejoindered: ‘I do not gossip about those things, even to my husband. I am the First Minister of the country, not the office gossip.’
As though the issues in question were watercooler scuttlebutt or a rumour about the annual Christmas party.
The SNP leader then insinuated that Ruth Davidson was getting personal. ‘I understand why Ruth Davidson wants to drag my husband into these matters but the fact is that he had no role,’ she told MSPs. Suddenly, it was not the couple running the country from their breakfast table at fault, but those suggesting this might not be democratically healthy.
Accountability
On paper, last week should have been exacting for the Sturgeon-Murrell enterprise. Scotland’s cloistered co- ruler dragged into the light to answer questions and his spouse interrogated on the tenor of his answers. In reality, never were two people more poised or self-assured. When the powerful do not fear mechanisms of accountability, there is either something wrong with the powerful or with the mechanisms.
Sturgeon and Murrell’s rise to power is a story of failed mechanisms and faulty institutions. Scotland goes through long periods as a dominant-party system. As the dominant party tightens its governing monopoly, the less chance there is of it being defeated and the less need for it to listen to opposing views. It grows complacent, arrogant and the democratic muscles atrophy. In the 19th century it was the Liberals; in the 20th century, Scottish Labour; today, it is the SNP.
The difference now is that there is a devolved legislature in Edinburgh. This ought to disrupt single-party dominance thanks to a more proportional voting system and an end to the narrative of Scotland done down by England. Public attention should have shifted from the constitutional question to matters of tax, spending and policy choices. The practice of devolution has been very different from the theory.
Sturgeon wields so much power because the parliament wields so little. It is an anaemic institution, with whips dictating committee convenorships and an inquiry into the Scottish Government brought to a halt whenever it elects not to co-operate. Even with an ill- structured parliament like Holyrood, MSPs should be able to see off attempts at executive overreach, but they rarely do because of a dysfunctional political culture.
Nationalist MSPs do not behave as a parliamentary party but rather a bloc vote directed by the leader’s office. Crossparty co- operation is plentiful on lowlevel issues but when ministers make up their minds, it is highly unlikely any of their backbenchers will defy them. Whipbreaking is vanishingly uncommon.
The consequences are more than philosophical. The UK Government was paralysed for two years after falling into minority status; the SNP, in the minority since 2016, governs as though it held a majority. Because the executive is strong, committees weak and backbenchers compliant, bad laws stand a greater chance of making it onto the books.
Accountability becomes nigh on impossible in such circumstances. The Salmond hearings show this. An inquiry into how the SNP leader’s government investigated complaints against her predecessor is chaired by an Nationalist MSP and former ministerial colleague of both. Linda Fabiani is a solid deputy presiding officer but hardly known for a lively streak of independence from her own party.
She has spoken out against obstruction of her committee but withholding of documents, ministerial memory lapses and refusals of witness requests are a testament to what the SNP thinks of an inquiry chaired by one of its own.
Other checks and balances that are absent from Scottish politics are a strong opposition, adversarial broadcasters and an independent civil society.
Ideology
Of the four opposition parties at Holyrood, three are hopelessly divided and a fourth sees its job as propping up the Government rather than putting it under pressure. BBC Scotland, which sustained years of malicious allegations from nationalists, does not interrogate the Scottish government with a skerrick of the robust cynicism that its London counterparts do the UK Government. Meanwhile, third- sector bodies have been captured by nationalist ideology.
This is what it looks like when your country is run by untouchables. Untouchables are not always created by shoddy political infrastructure but it always helps their rise to the top.
The reason for checks and balances is to protect democracy from itself. It cannot be enough that a party has a majority; its actions must be regulated to serve a larger idea of democracy. Checks and balances are like police who direct drivers when traffic lights fail. That permanently green light might tell oncoming vehicles they have right-of-way but there has to be a mechanism to stop them abusing their advantage.
Why are Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell so confident? Because this inquiry’s findings may come and go, but they will most likely remain. In a dominant-party system, whoever dominates the party dominates entirely.
Maybe you think, per the Prime Minister, devolution is a ‘disaster’. Perhaps you reckon it is what Scotland needs. You may even believe in independence. No matter where you sit on the political or constitutional spectrum, you have an interest in making the system work better than this. Government by untouchables is what got us where we are today.