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It comes hours after SNP listeners resigned following the arrest of Peter Murrell. Nicola Sturgeon was forced to resign as prime minister, Alex Salmond said, saying the circumstances of her resignation had "delegitimized" Humza Yousaf's position as her successor. Salmond suggested that Ms Sturgeon was forced to resign because of her decision in January to ask the Supreme Court to challenge the government's decision to block gender recognition reforms and then fail to comply with them.
"To quit midway is to invite inevitable failure. So it was clearly not the intention to go when Nicola left, it was not a planned departure in that sense," he told The Times.
"The SNP obviously has questions to answer and the problem is that it delegitimizes Humza."
It comes just hours after the accountants who audit the SNP's accounts resigned following the arrest of the party's former chief executive amid a police investigation into the SNP's finances.
Peter Murrell, who is married to former Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon and recently resigned from the SNP, has been released without charge pending further investigation after 12 hours of questioning.
Police were seen searching the garden of former Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon after her husband was arrested following an investigation into the finances of the SNP.
Peter Murrell, who married the former party leader in 2010, resigned as SNP chief executive last month following controversy over misleading information given to journalists about the party's membership.
Murrell was arrested on Wednesday following a lengthy police investigation into spending around £600,000 that went to the Scottish independence campaign.
He has since been released without charge. Full report:
Police officers with shovels were seen in the back garden of the home of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell in Glasgow.
The SNP setbacks will not put an end to Scotland's quest for independence, writes Mary Dejevsky.
Read Mary's full article here:
SNP setbacks won't end Scotland's quest for independence, says Mary Dejevsky
ICYMI: Claims that the SNP and the police were 'in collusion' over the timing of Peter Murrell's arrest have been dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the party's new leader, Humza Yousaf.
reports Archie Mitchell.
Senior SNP official Alex Neil said it was "hard to believe" that an investigation into the match was not a factor in Sturgeon's resignation.
The firm that audits the SNP's accounts resigned just days after Nicola Sturgeon's husband was arrested in connection with a police investigation into the party's finances.
Accounting firm Johnston Carmichael told the party it made the decision after reviewing its client base.
More information:
Reports suggest accounting firm Johnston Carmichael made a decision after reviewing client portfolio
In case you missed it...
The Westminster SNP leader has expressed "shock" to see a police tent set up outside Nicola Sturgeon's home following the arrest of her husband, Peter Murrell.
Speaking to the News Agents podcast, Stephen Flynn said: "I'll be honest with you, I was a bit shocked to see these images because I think we all associate police tents with forensics and so on, but I don't know." What are the police doing?
“I don't know what they're looking for. I don't know what they found, if anything. It's all guesswork at this point.
He added: “I mean it's hard to forget the image of that store, isn't it? It's been stuck in my mind for about 24 hours, that's for sure.
"But again, I don't know what the police are actually doing or looking for, so it's hard to put it all together."
For nearly a decade, Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon have been the husband and wife team running the SNP.
But now Murrell is at the center of an investigation into the finances of the SNP and has been arrested by Police Scotland as part of the ongoing investigation into the financing of the party.
My colleague Thomas Kingsley has the details:
Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon helped take the SNP to new heights, but now both have quit
The SNP has hired a lawyer who specializes in "white collar crime" as part of the ongoing police investigation into the party's finances, according to reports.
It comes after Prime Minister Humza Yousaf suggested on Thursday that only Peter Murrell, the party's former chief executive and husband of Nicola Sturgeon, was suspected of guilt.
According to his website, Stuart Munroe's areas of expertise include "white collar crime and related litigation" and "financial crime allegations."
The Telegraph reports that the SNP hired Mr Munro and that the party is not paying Mr Murrell's legal fees.
Munro previously performed for Andy Coulson, the disgraced former editor of the News of the World, during his perjury trial in 2015.
A collapse, an implosion, a collapse: however you describe what has happened in Scottish politics in the last eight weeks, it is hard to foresee a quick return to SNP dominance, writes Mary Dejevsky. It's also hard to feel more than sympathy for the new leader of the Scottish National Party, Humza Yousaf, who was left unceremoniously with a broken legacy.
The dawn police raid on the home shared by former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, former party chief executive Peter Murrell, marked the latest low point. A neighbor saw the blue tent erected in the garden and feared that there had been a murder.
There had been no murder, just some kind of death. The dream, for some Scots, of independence has ended, probably for at least a generation.
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