Humza Yousaf accepted an invitation to meet controversial bus tycoon Sir Brian Souter last month in a desperate attempt to boost the SNP's floundering coffers. The Stagecoach founder used to bankroll the nationalists when they were led by Alex Salmond but has not donated since he stepped down.
This was a common occurrence for the SNP since Nicola Sturgeon took over as First Minister as big donations from business people dried up, leaving the party reliant on dead supporters and their membership. Analysis of their accounts shows that they have received just one donation worth £50,000 or more from a living person in the last five years.
Instead, the nationalists prided themselves on being funded by their massive membership numbers, which did hit over 100,000 a few years ago. However, this figure has plummeted to about 74,000 over the last couple of years despite the SNP attempting to cover this up through false briefings to the press.
It means they could be facing major financial issues, especially with an expensive general election being on the horizon. They had to be loaned £107,000 by former chief executive Peter Murrell in 2021 to help with "cashflow issues" following the Holyrood election.
Mr Yousaf is hoping that he can become more popular with tycoons and business people than his predecessor who was labelled "incompetent" by one former big donor. Figures from the Electoral Commission revealed that during Mr Salmond's seven and a half years as First Minister, he helped to take in more than £8.2m from supportive individuals and companies.
That is double the £4.1m raised by Ms Sturgeon during her eight year tenure. It is this poor financial outlook that has led her replacement to accept Mr Souter's offer of attending a prayer breakfast as a guest of his in June. Politico reports that Mr Yousaf joined him at the annual Christian gathering.
This was something never undertaken by Ms Sturgeon but some of her government ministers did attend. Mr Salmond's closeness to the bus tycoon did court controversy due to the latter's socially conservative views, which included campaigning to keep the Section 28 clause which forbade local authorities from "intentionally promoting homosexuality"
He previously gave more than £2.5m to the SNP between 2007 and the independence referendum in 2014 but stopped donating once Ms Sturgeon took over. Her struggles to rule Scotland was also named as another reason why one former big donor stopped handing cash to the nationalists.
Speaking anonymously to Politico, the donor who once handed over more than £150,000 to the SNP, said they had not donated in more than a decade as they were “disappointed with the performance of the Scottish government.” They added: "There has been an awful lot of incompetence. Nicola was basically a decent person, but she centralised everything too much and she lacked imagination."
An SNP spokesperson said that “unlike the Westminster parties, the people-powered SNP relies on our members’ donations for the vast majority of our income. As the Tory-made cost of living crisis deepens, it’s understandable that some people have less disposable income to spare but we remain confident of returning to surplus in this year’s accounts."
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