Are the SNP too wee, too poor, too stupid to fight an election?
One of the stories lost in the maelstrom of Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest last month was that in the first three months of 2023 the SNP received just £4,000 (yes four thousand pounds) in donations. As The National pointed out ‘The SNP’s money all came from one donor, James Murdoch from Strathearn, and was received on February 8, just a week before Nicola Sturgeon resigned.’
Meanwhile for every one pound the SNP raised Scottish Labour and the Scottish Lib Dems received fifty pounds. We are fewer than 18 months a away from the next general election and this the time when parties raise funds to fight the next election.
Right now they’d be appointing campaign directors for the election campaign and staff for the election, engaging in leafleting, and other important election winning actions but if they don’t have the money to fight an election then that hands an advantage to their opponents in Scotland which could be the difference between a Labour minority and a Labour government. I
t could also kibosh the plan by the SNP to use the next general election campaign as a de facto independence referendum which would end up keeping Scotland in the UK for another generation.
Given the contretemps with the SNP finances it might be a struggle for the SNP to raise enough funds between now and the next UK wide general election. Their new auditors have already flagged up a new issue with the SNP finances.
Sir Keir Starmer is proving to be a very lucky general with the implosion of the SNP, with Yousaf’s ratings indicating he could be a drag on the SNP. Labour’s Red Rose could be the dominant flower of Scotland once again whilst the SNP do not have a pot to piss in as we say in Yorkshire.
As one SNP MP put it recently, the SNP is ‘intellectually dead from the neck up’ and their finances confirms the SNP look like meeting at least two of the criteria of being too wee, too poor, too stupid, will they meet the third one at the next election?
TSE