Police Scotland is making inquiries following a complaint about the finances of Yes Scotland, the vehicle set up by former SNP leader Alex Salmond to campaign for independence ahead of the 2014 referendum, BBC News reported on 5 July 2026.

A Police Scotland spokesperson confirmed: "We have received a complaint and inquiries are ongoing." The complaint was lodged by David Henry — the same individual whose concerns about SNP party finances triggered Operation Branchform, the investigation that ultimately led to the conviction of former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell.

The substance of Henry's allegation centres on a gap in Yes Scotland's financial records. He told the Sunday Mail that accounts filed from 2016 onward showed a zero balance, while earlier filings had recorded approximately £1.5m in income — money that, in his words, appeared to have "just gone." The Sunday Mail reported those claims of more than £1.5m being unaccounted for.

Yes Scotland Ltd is now dormant. Its most recent accounts show a zero balance, and the company has not been active since 2014. The SNP, for its part, stated that Yes Scotland Ltd was an "entirely separate organisation" from the party — a distinction that matters legally, whatever the broader political optics.

Yes Scotland responded to the allegations directly, stating that all money was accounted for and that there had been no wrongdoing.

The procedural position is worth being precise about. Police Scotland has confirmed only that a complaint has been received and that inquiries are under way. That is some distance from a formal investigation, and further still from any finding of criminality. Henry's track record — his complaint about SNP finances proved well-founded — will lend his allegations credibility in some quarters, but credibility is not evidence, and the police have made no public assessment of the merits of this complaint.

The political context is layered. Yes Scotland was a broad cross-party coalition vehicle rather than an SNP entity, drawing in the Scottish Greens and others. The SNP's arm's-length framing is legally conventional for a designated campaign body, though it sits awkwardly alongside the campaign's close operational ties to the party at the time. The dormant-company status and zero-balance accounts make tracing any historical flows more, not less, complex for investigators.

Salmond himself died in 2023, which removes the most obvious central figure from any potential line of questioning. That does not foreclose inquiries into the organisation's finances or the conduct of those who administered them, but it does narrow the field of individuals who could speak directly to decision-making at the top.

Henry's role as a serial complainant in Scottish political finance matters is itself a fact of note. Operation Branchform took several years from complaint to charge; the Murrell conviction came only in 2025. If Police Scotland finds sufficient basis to escalate this inquiry, any process is likely to be protracted. At Holyrood — the Scottish Parliament — the complaint will add to a political climate already shadowed by the Branchform aftermath, even if the two matters are legally and organisationally distinct.