So what was all that about?

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is finally cleared by police investigating alleged misuse of party funds.

That tent outside Sturgeon’s home

The publishers won’t be happy. Nicola Sturgeon’s autobiography, Frankly, which is due to be published in August, will have to be partially rewritten now that she has been cleared by police of any wrongdoing under Operation Branchform. This is the investigation, begun three years ago, into the alleged misuse of £600,000 in donations solicited by Ms Sturgeon in 2017 for a referendum campaign that never happened. She was arrested in June 2023 and questioned about her involvement.

"For almost two years, I have had this cloud of investigation hanging over me,” she told reporters yesterday. “I have done nothing wrong, and I don't think there was ever a scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong. I think it won't surprise anybody to hear me say that has not been an easy experience." Indeed.

It is actually over three years since the initial complaint was made to police by one Sean Clerkin, a nationalist with the Scottish Resistance direct action group. He alleged that the £600,000 in donations had been improperly redirected into general party expenditure instead of being “ring-fenced” for the putative referendum campaign. Ms Sturgeon’s argument all along has been that the Scottish National Party campaigns perennially for a referendum on independence and that it was therefore legitimate for the money to be used for campaigning at, and between, elections. The fact that Westminster was refusing to grant said referendum is beside the point.

I don’t know about the laws on party funding and donations and whether there was anything dodgy about this. But it always seemed to me to be a matter of accountancy rather than criminality. However, as Sir Iain Livingstone helpfully explained on BBC Scotland before his retirement as Chief Constable in August 2023, the original investigation had extended beyond the party funds issue. It had morphed into “fraud and potential embezzlement” which, he said, justified the lengthy investigation.

Make of that what you will. Ms Sturgeon’s husband and former SNP Chief Executive, Peter Murrell, has, of course, been charged with embezzlement and appeared in court this week, entering no plea. This does not suggest he is guilty of anything or even that the matter will necessarily go to trial. But whatever he pleads, Mr Murrell is innocent until proven guilty, and we should remember that.

Except, of course, that this is only half the story and ignores the politics of Operation Branchform. It is naïve to say that there is “no taint” on his character or on Ms Sturgeon’s reputation as a result of this police investigation, which even many lawyers believe has been badly handled. Justice delayed is justice denied. If the process is the punishment, Nicola Sturgeon has arguably had it. So where does it leave the woman who led the SNP to its greatest election victories?