Now humiliated SNP suffers a £1million hammer blow in lost Westminster funding

The SNP’s financial woes have been compounded by last week’s humiliation at the ballot box with £1 million of crucial funding lost from the House of Commons.

John Swinney’s party will be served the hammer blow when its depleted cadre of nine MPs return to Westminster.

Nationalists were forecast to receive £1.3 million in public funds – known as short money – to help them prop up their ­operations south of the Border this year.

The cash is handed to each opposition party by the Westminster authorities based on how many MPs they have.

Forecasts based on the SNP’s cataclysmic performance on Thursday show the party will now be given just over £350,000 – almost £1 million a year less than they had been getting since 2019.

A swathe of staff will also be scrambling to find new jobs within the party, with many looking to the Holyrood group to squeeze them into their ranks.

Others are attempting to contact the nine remaining MPs in a bid to stay on the ­payroll. 

Those affected include the constituency and Press teams formerly employed by the raft of MPs who lost their seats.

It is the latest setback for those managing the SNP coffers amid a deepening financial crisis threatening the future of the party.

Funding to support opposition parties, or short money, was first brought in by Westminster authorities in 1975.

For the 2023/24 financial year, parties receive £21,438.33 for every seat they hold. They are also given £42.82 for every 200 votes they receive. 

Additionally, they are allocated a proportion of an overall travel allowance, split between the parties, worth £235,511.46. Prior to Thursday’s ballot, the SNP was set to get a total of £1,301,552.04 for the 43 seats it still held.

But analysis shows that amount will drop substantially after the Nationalists won just nine seats with a total of 708,759 votes.

By extrapolating the sum due from those figures, and adding in a proportionate travel allowance, the SNP will now only get £350,240 a year following the widespread losses suffered across Scotland.

That is £951,311 less than the £1.3 million initially forecast.

It is the latest in a long line of financial setbacks to hit the Nationalists with recent annual accounts showing the SNP had plunged £800,000 into deficit due to a slump in membership numbers along with the drying up of donations.

Meanwhile, senior figures remain embroiled in a police probe into ‘missing’ independence funds believed to be worth around £600,000, which has also hindered attempts to fundraise.

Nicola Sturgeon and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie remain under investigation by police, while Ms Sturgeon’s husband and former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been arrested twice.

He was charged with embezzlement on the second occasion but has been released. Finances have been cripplingly tight at SNP HQ for some time.

Last year former treasurer Mr Beattie told the party’s National Executive Committee the SNP faced financial ruin if it did not turbo-charge fundraising efforts.

Just days before that meeting, The Scottish Mail on Sunday revealed how officers had confiscated a high-value motorhome from outside 92-year-old Margaret Murrell’s home in Dunfermline, 50 miles from the house in Glasgow where her son Mr Murrell lives with Ms Sturgeon.

It later came to light that even the SNP’s accountants, who had worked with the party for around a decade, had stepped down from their position.

Rishi Sunak’s shock general election announcement on May 22 set hares running within the SNP amid fears the party would not be able to meet campaign costs.

Mr Swinney was forced to make a plea to supporters to donate cash as his party faced ‘particular financial challenges’.

Meanwhile, at an SNP parliamentary group meeting at Holyrood during the campaign, MSPs were urged provide a spare room or flat to staff based in the Commons so taxpayer-funded workers could relocate from London to Scotland to hit the campaign trail and avoid the party having to pay costly hotel bills.

Early research into digital marketing trends during the campaign showed the cash-strapped SNP spent a significantly smaller sum than Labour on online content.

Mr Swinney, though, repeatedly insisted that his party had enough funds throughout the campaign.

However, he has now admitted that the massive reduction in the SNP’s short money cash from Westminster will significantly hit staffing levels.

On Friday, Mr Swinney said there would be an impact on the organisation as a result of the ­public funds being withdrawn.

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