The SNP’s financial headaches are about to get even worse. Unless a new auditor is found by May 31, the party’s Westminster Group faces losing £1.15 million in short money, which will be withdrawn under Commons rules until auditors sign off on the party accounts. Short money is the taxpayer cash given to opposition parties to pay staff wages and MP travel, which is only provided on the condition it is used “exclusively in relation to the party’s parliamentary business.” No auditor, no cash. Given there are serious questions over the £110,000 motorhome purchased using the SNP’s campaign money, finding someone willing to sign along the dotted line here might prove difficult…

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn is now also feeling the heat, with Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray sending a letter to Flynn, IPSA and Penny Mordaunt in which he raised questions over Flynn’s knowledge and potential involvement over the party’s cash crisis. Radio silence so far…

Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray finally gave into questioning from Nick Robinson this morning, and said Sir Keir resigning in the wake of a Beergate fine and then standing in the subsequent leadership election is “not under consideration”. After a few evasive answers he implied Starmer would not try the disingenuous tactic. The questions came after former Chief Whip Nick Brown floated the idea at the weekend.

“I don’t anyone’s ever thought about this, that’s why I’m saying it’s not under consideration… when you put it in the context of ‘has this been discussed? Is this part of the overall strategy?’ there’s no strategy here… The reason I’m saying it’s not under consideration is because I don’t think anyone’s ever thought about this. Nick Brown has said it as an off-the-cuff remark and it’s now become part of the story.”

Last night a Labour Spokesperson confirmed to Guido that both Starmer and Rayner have now received police questionnaires over their beer and curry night. While the exact content and wording of Durham Police’s questionnaires isn’t yet known, those sent by the Met to the Prime Minister stated recipients “do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention we questioned something which you later rely on in court”. In other words, a police caution. Something Angela Rayner described as “frankly a national embarrassment” at the time…

Nine NEC members voted against proscribing Resist, an organisation that promoted George Galloway instead of Labour’s Kim Leadbeater in the Batley and Spen by-election. The group also claim that accusations of antisemitism in Labour were politically motivated.

Laura Pidcock, Yasmine Dar, Gemma Bolton, Nadia Jama, Mish Rahman, Jame Taylor, Andy Kerr, Mick Whelan, Andy Fox, Ian Murray, and Andy Kerr also voted against expelling Labour Against the WitchHunt, and Labour in Exile. Interestingly Laura McNeill, NEC Youth Rep, broke rank and voted for proscribing Labour Against the WitchHunt, and Labour in Exile…   

A further 12 NEC reps voted against proscribing Socialist Appeal. In spite of the rebellion all four groups were banned from the Labour Party…. 

A statement signed by nine of the left NEC members and incoming rep Amy Jackson claimed that considering the matter is:

“a continuation of the destructive, factional behaviours from the leadership of the party which have marked the last year. This isn’t just about the organisations we are being asked to consider on Tuesday it is about setting a precedent; proscribing these organisations as a forerunner to proscription of more and more groupings on the left of the party, to ultimately expel large sections of the Labour left.” 

Guido encourages co-conspirators to listen to the people Starmer is trying to expel and decide whether they think these people and groups are “toxic”…

While the Tories are in the hot seat in Westminster over the Greensill scandal, Labour are also turning fire north of the border – at Nicola Sturgeon. This week it emerged SNP minister Fergus Ewing had a secret and undocumented meeting with Greensill and Gupta, the latter eventually garnering more than half-a-billion pounds in taxpayer guarantees from the SNP government. Guess who’s once again facing questions over when she knew about a controversial meeting. Sturgeon’s memory is notoriously shaky…

Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray has now accused SNP cronyism of being the “next Greensill scandal”

“The SNP government is embroiled in its own complex web of connections between senior Scottish ministers, Sanjeev Gupta and his financial backer Lex Greensill.”

As Murray points out, the governing party north of the border – accused of poor use of taxpayers money with Gupta – is also under investigation by the police for a £600,000 black hole in their election finances. Given the reluctance by the London-based media to focus on the Salmond/Sturgeon row, Guido doesn’t hold out hope for the same media scrutiny of this aspect of the cronyism row… 

Yesterday European Movement UK Chair and Labour peer Andrew Adonis shared details of his new eurofederalist conference taking place later this month  – describing his event as having a:

“Great line-up in support of our campaign ‘step by step towards Rejoin’.”

Curiously, second on the billing is none other than Keir Starmer’s own Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland – Ian Murray. A Shadow Cabinet Minister on a “Rejoin” platform is a clear endorsement, suggesting that under Starmer Labour’s position in government would be once again in favour of EU membership, whatever their official policy in opposition…

This morning on LBC Sir Keir said “we’ve left the EU, we’ve got a deal we’ve got to make it work and we don’t want to rejoin. That’s the position of the Labour Party, we can’t go on fighting yesterday’s wars.” Someone should tell his own Shadow Cabinet…