A senior SNP MP has said the party should consider Alex Salmond's proposed pact between pro-independence parties at the next general election.
Joanna Cherry said she does not see “what the SNP would have to lose” from the former first minister’s proposal.
Alba leader Salmond suggested earlier this week that the SNP, Alba and the Scottish Greens should only field one candidate in each seat in the next Westminster election.
He called this a “Scotland United for independence pact” and said it would make the election “centred on independence and how to get it” instead of the SNP’s record in government or the “current internal difficulties of Scotland’s major party”.
Cherry wrote in The National that "the party should be considering the option put forward in a letter from Alex Salmond to SNP MPs earlier this week” at its independence convention taking place in a couple of weeks.
She said: “The idea of having a single independence mandate candidate in each parliamentary constituency would offer us a strong opportunity to defeat the unionist parties by moving them off the ground upon which they will want to fight – SNP difficulties, policy issues at Holyrood – on to the ground on which we want to fight, the argument that things will only change in Scotland with independence.
“Such a platform would unite all those who support independence under one banner and given that support for independence now outstrips support for the SNP, that can only be a good thing for my party.
“In fact, I don’t see what the SNP would have to lose from Alex Salmond’s proposal. Effectively, our sitting MPs (or our replacements for those standing down) would be the candidates in all 45 seats that we currently hold, badged as ‘SNP, Scotland United for Independence’.”
Salmond’s proposal would allow all current SNP and Alba MPs to fight their seats at the next general election without another pro-independence candidate standing against them.
The remaining seats would then be divided among the parties within the agreement, with the SNP guaranteed to have “the lion’s share” of these.
Cherry is just the latest SNP politician to react positively to a potential pact. Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil did not dismiss the idea when speaking to the Record earlier this week.
He said: "The majority in Scotland want independence so we have to explore all options to make that work. Independence is bigger than politics."
But the idea was rejected by the SNP's longest-serving MP Pete Wishart. He said the SNP would be “severely punished” by voters if it partnered with the “toxic” Alba Party.
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie also ruled out working with Alba on a future independence campaign on Thursday.
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