"This blows apart any pretence that Nicola Sturgeon is prepared to be transparent about this SNP scandal."
Rachael Hamilton did not mince her words. The Scottish Conservative deputy leader cut through the fog surrounding Sturgeon's latest manoeuvre with the bluntness it deserves. On or around 13 July 2026, Sturgeon's lawyer Aamer Anwar confirmed that neither her written statement to Police Scotland nor the record of her no-comment interview would see the light of day. The woman who once lectured Scotland on openness has decided the public does not merit a glimpse into her account of the affair that sent her estranged husband to prison.
Consider the timeline. Sturgeon was arrested in June 2023 as part of Operation Branchform, the marathon probe into SNP finances. She answered "no comment" to every question at Falkirk police station, then followed up with a detailed written statement. Police Scotland wrapped up their inquiries into her by March 2025 with no charges. Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, pleaded guilty in May 2026 to embezzling more than £400,000 from the party and received five years and three months behind bars in June. The money, spent on personal items including a motorhome, had been raised in part for an independence referendum that never materialised.
In a BBC interview back in May, Sturgeon told Laura Kuenssberg she could not think of anything in that statement she would not want published, though she would take legal advice. Legal advice, it turns out, counselled silence. Anwar's statement on her behalf insisted she had been "exonerated through the proper process" and bore no "onus" to prove her innocence in "the court of media opinion". The phrasing drips with disdain for anyone still asking questions.
Ms Sturgeon’s detailed statement produced for Police Scotland was to assist them with their inquiries; not for those who think they could now do a better job than the robust ‘gold-plated’ financial crime investigation. Ms Sturgeon is innocent, as evidenced by the fact that she was not charged, prosecuted nor convicted of any crime. Having been exonerated through the proper process, there is no onus on her to now prove her innocence in the court of media opinion. Neither Ms Sturgeon’s written statement nor her police interview will be released.
One wonders whether Anwar truly believes his own rhetoric. It is understood that neither Police Scotland nor the Crown Office would object to publication. The only barrier is Sturgeon herself. This is not about protecting an innocent woman from trial by newspaper. It is about a former first minister choosing opacity at the precise moment the public might connect the dots between her leadership, her husband's actions and the fate of hundreds of thousands of pounds donated in good faith by independence supporters.
The SNP's entanglement with separatism has long strained the UK's constitutional fabric. When a movement dedicated to breaking up the country treats basic accountability as optional, it confirms what many have suspected: the project was always more about elite insulation than popular will. Polling has repeatedly shown that support for independence, while stubborn, rarely commands a sustained majority once voters weigh the practical costs. Yet the party's internal culture, revealed in this four-year, £2.7 million investigation, suggests a cavalier attitude to funds and scrutiny that sits uneasily alongside demands for yet another referendum.
