John Swinney was accused of being in denial by whistleblowers after rejecting claims they were bullied by Nicola Sturgeon and other senior SNP figures.

On Thursday, the First Minister repeatedly refused to offer a direct apology to Allison Graham and Cynthia Guthrie after they claimed they felt bullied when trying to raise questions about the SNP’s accounts while members of the party’s own financial watchdog.

He also rejected claims that anyone had been bullied by Ms Sturgeon or other senior party figures.

The row came as Mr Swinney was branded ‘king of the SNP cover-up’ as he continued to deny calls for a full inquiry into the Peter Murrell scandal, days after the former SNP chief executive was jailed for five years and three months for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.

Responding to Mr Swinney rejecting the bullying claims and refusing to apologise, Ms Guthrie, one of the whistleblowers, said she is not surprised by his response because ‘that’s how they’ve got into the mess in the first place’ and said it shows ‘that they have learned nothing and they have not changed’.

She said: ‘I think by the people he has promoted and the people he has drawn round him, and this hubris and this denial he is going through – he’s giving journalists a terrible time, they’re shouting down like clapping seals – Scotland deserves so much better than this.

‘I believe in an independent Scotland and want an independent Scotland and this isn’t good enough, and John has to step up to the plate, grow some and start leading the country. It’s unsustainable.’

She said she has supported calls for a KC-led inquiry within the SNP.

Ms Guthrie also criticised his refusal to accept that anyone at the top of the SNP had bullied anyone. She said: ‘I could turn round and tell you I’m not a woman, or I could turn round and tell you I can’t drive a car when I can, it doesn’t mean to say it’s true. That’s maybe his perception but they are in a bubble, they are in cognitive dissonance.

‘Nicola Sturgeon is rewriting history and she is creating a persona and a new life for herself and everything that has gone before is in the past, that’s what they are telling us. “All in the past, nothing to see here”. Out in the streets the public are going “not good enough”.

‘If it keeps going the way it’s going it is unsustainable, I don’t know what is going to happen.’

In an interview with the Scottish Sun newspaper, HR executive Ms Guthrie and business analyst Ms Graham, who both held unpaid roles on the SNP’s finance and audit committee in 2021, criticised Mr Swinney and Ms Sturgeon for ‘enabling’ Mr Murrell’s £400,000 fraud and for making repeated public statements denying that money had gone missing from the SNP.

When they resigned from the committee, along with former Edinburgh Lord Provost Frank Ross, they had a go at the ‘obvious procrastination’ from Mr Murrell saying they had been given contradictory information and had ‘no way’ of providing ‘scrutiny and governance’.

Ms Graham said Ms Sturgeon had praised a Highland councillor who launched a ‘verbal attack’, and said they were also criticised by others. She said: ‘It was overwhelming. It was just like a torrent. I’m not a shy, retiring individual but this was like being bullied in the playground. It felt as if you were being kicked.

‘Nicola came in very clearly to shut it down. She was using her positional authority to demean what I said.

‘It was like, “I’m the First Minister, I know better”. Nobody backed me up.’

Asked if she was bullied by Ms Sturgeon, she replied: ‘Bullied by them all.’

The whistleblowers also raised concerns about Kirsten Oswald, who was the SNP’s business convener at the time and now the Scottish Government Victim’s Minister, for failing to properly record their resignation statement in meeting minutes.

During exchanges at First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay highlighted the concerns raised by Ms Graham and Ms Guthrie as they watched on in the public gallery.

He said that their testimony proves beyond any doubt that John Swinney and others ‘enabled’ Murrell’s crimes and asked if he would apologise to them.

Mr Swinney said only that he had ‘apologised to members of the Scottish National Party for the events that have effected the party’s finances and I reiterate those today’.

Later he again refused to directly apologise to the two women, saying only that he had ‘apologised to all party members’.

Pressed on whether he believed Ms Sturgeon or other senior figures in the party were bullies, he said: ‘No, I don’t.’

During the FMQs exchanges, Mr Findlay said: ‘The truth is, Peter Murrell should have never been free to commit these crimes. Members of the SNP finance and audit committee blew the whistle but they were bullied into quitting after being refused access to basic information.

‘John Swinney twice went onto the BBC to say his party’s finances were completely sound. He was at the heart of the cover-up then and now, and that’s why he’s terrified of an inquiry. Because John Swinney, the king of the SNP cover-up, is desperate to cover his own back. Isn’t that the simple truth?’

Mr Swinney said: ‘Russell Findlay has gone on about the need for an inquiry into all these issues. This must be the first time in living memory that Russell Findlay, who has championed the interests of victims, wants an inquiry into the victim of this particular case.

‘I have addressed the issues in the SNP’s finances and the SNP has got strong governance in place.’