Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Morrell to end marriage

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell have decided to end their marriage.

In a social media post, Sturgeon said the couple had been separated for some time.

It was Muriel. Alleged embezzlement of SNP funds in April as part of a police investigation into the party’s finances.

There was sturgeon. Arrested and released without charge. In June 2023. She insists she did nothing wrong.

The former prime minister said the decision to end the marriage was made with a “heavy heart”.

She posted on Instagram: “For all intents and purposes we’ve been apart for a while and feel it’s time to bring others up to speed where we are.

“It goes without saying that we still care deeply for each other, and always will.”

Sturgeon said the pair would not comment further.

Police Scotland has spent more than two years looking into what happened to £660,000 in donations from independence activists to the SNP.

In April 2023, Sturgeon and Muriel’s Glasgow home was searched.

Police also searched the SNP headquarters in Edinburgh and seized a luxury motor home parked in Muriel’s mother’s driveway in Fife.

It emerged in September last year that officers had sent details of what they had revealed in an “advice and guidance report” to prosecutors and were seeking formal advice on what to do next.

The update was understood to be about Sturgeon and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie, who are both under investigation after being arrested in 2023 and released without charge.

At the time, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said a police report was under consideration.

Police Scotland has said it is awaiting guidance from COPFS on “what further action should be taken”.

They were Scotland’s political power couple for nearly a decade.

While Nicola Sturgeon ran the Scottish Government, her husband Peter Morrell ran the party she was leader of – the SNP.

Ms Sturgeon’s predecessor, Alex Salmond, once told me he had privately warned the couple in 2014 against concentrating so much power in one house.

I have not been able to verify his account but in subsequent years others in the SNP have publicly questioned this set-up.

In recent days, the former prime minister was quoted in the Financial Times, apparently describing her work/life arrangement as “a long, long one”.

Any crossover between the political and personal lives of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell has come under renewed scrutiny since police began investigating the SNP’s finances.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, it is clear that the power couple at its center are now living separate lives.