The SNP faces an additional financial black hole of almost £500,000 after its general election disaster.
A huge drop in the number of nationalist MPs means that the amount of taxpayer support received by the party is expected to fall to about £350,000 from £1.3 million at present.
However The Times has learnt that the Westminster group will also miss out on almost £464,000 that came in through donations from its MPs.
Last year Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, increased his parliamentarians’ annual contribution to pooled funding, which pays for central research staff, by 3 per cent to £11,893. That will reduce dramatically with the loss of 39 nationalist MPs leaving it with only nine.
Unlike at Holyrood, where MSPs pay 6 per cent of the money they are given to employ office staff to a central pot, the Westminster group’s standing orders say that all MPs should contribute equally to pay for researchers and press officers “at a level set by the group”.
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The money was in addition to “short money”, which is calculated using a formula that gives each party £42.82 for every 200 votes won at an election, and £21,438 for every seat won. It is due to rise by 4 per cent this year, in line with December’s inflation rate.
This funding is not given to the governing party, which has the support of the civil service and taxpayer-funded political special advisers.
The SNP declined to comment but did not dispute the figures. It is believed that the party will make decisions over its new financial position soon.
The funding problem adds to a troubling week for the party. Flynn admitted on Monday that the SNP’s “internal difficulties” led to people feeling that the nationalists were detached from their daily lives.
On a disastrous election night for the SNP the party lost the entirety of Scotland’s central belt.
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Senior figures have been airing their opinions on the reasons for the losses, with Joanna Cherry, the ousted MP, laying the blame at the door of Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader.
Ian Blackford, the former Westminster leader, gave only a cautious backing to John Swinney’s leadership but said voters had sent the SNP a “very clear message”.
Flynn was re-elected in Aberdeen South but his majority was reduced to 3,758, as Scottish Labour finished second in the constituency.
He wrote in the Daily Record that the SNP must be guided by the “brutal honesty” of the election results. Flynn said: “We were beaten and we were beaten well — we can’t and we won’t run away from that truth. Honesty and humility is the only response with any hope of winning back those who voted for others or those who decided to stay at home.”
Flynn said it would take time to understand the defeat but it was clear the party’s difficulties in recent years had contributed.
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“The distraction of dealing with our own internal difficulties has meant people began to feel that we were detached from their daily lives and lived experience,” he added. “We have lost trust and it’s our job, and our job alone, to win it back.”
Flynn backed Swinney’s leadership and said it was right to “genuinely congratulate” Sir Keir Starmer on his victory.
Kate Forbes, the deputy first minister, also backed Swinney to revitalise the party’s fortunes.
“Competence and integrity must be the hallmark of our leadership and it’s certainly the two words that have been on John Swinney’s lips prior to the election, throughout the election and now in the aftermath of the election,” she said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.
“Those are two flags, as it were, that need to be planted on everything that we do and I believe John Swinney is the leader to do that and I am very pleased to be supporting him in his mission to achieve that.”
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After Sturgeon’s resignation in March last year, Humza Yousaf became SNP leader and first minister after a leadership contest that exposed divisions in the party.
He stepped down after just over a year in the job as he dealt with the backlash of his decision to suddenly end the power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens.
There is also a police investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP.