Joanna Cherry claims SNP is a “party machine” supporting Humza Yousaf

The MP supporting Ash Regan in the fight also claimed that the “party machine” supports Humza Yousaf.

It comes as one of the health secretary’s supporters was sanctioned by the SNP’s national secretary for using her party email to rally support.

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Emma Harper sent members in southern Scotland a message explaining why Mr Yousaf was the “best person” to be First Minister.

Under the contest’s rules, no member is permitted to use a party email “to attempt to influence members’ votes in the election.”

Last week, a poll of 515 SNP members put Mr Yousaf ahead of the rivals, with 31 percent saying they would support him, compared with 25 percent backing Kate Forbes.

Only 11% said they prefer Ms. Regan.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Ms Cherry said it would be wrong to write off the ex-minister’s offer.

“She’s making progress and I’ve heard a number of people say they’ve switched to her campaign after properly listening to her hustings.”

The MP said Ms Rgan showed “great courage and leadership” last year when she resigned as the municipality’s security minister over the gender recognition reform bill.

“Ash is socio-economically left of the party, which is more in line with my views. And it has an hinterland beyond politics. And she worked in the shop. She has worked in PR and she has worked in politics with the Commonweal think tank.

“And I think those are all things that the party could benefit from. She also wants to bring the independence movement back together and involve them in developing a strategy that actually brings independence.

“And she wants to raise the issue of internal governance of the SNP and internal party democracy.”

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Ms Cherry said all three candidates had a “rather big” problem.

“They were thrown into a very short campaign overnight, with no resources, no preparation, no backup team and no opportunity or time to develop a political program.

“Now it’s no secret that the party machine is behind Humza and not Kate and Ash.”

“We’ve already had a few instances where people mistakenly used the party’s internal mailing system to support Humza.

“So my point is that the party hasn’t had a leadership campaign, a leadership election, for almost 20 years. This election should include a detailed discussion of policy and strategy for the coming years. “Most of the candidates have not had time to prepare their policy packages and need to do it in a hurry.”

She said it was not fair to the candidates, the membership or the country.

“This is not an ideal course of action, but we are where we are.”

CONTINUE READING: Kate Forbes wants to target housing construction as FM under “immense pressure”.

The Edinburgh South West confirmed she would give Ms Forbes her second preference, saying it was despite her right to the finance minister’s socio-economic policy.

“I don’t agree with their religious beliefs. But more importantly, she has not indicated that she will legislate her religious beliefs on the rest of us. If she did that, I wouldn’t be able to support her as a gay woman.”

Ms Cherry said she was “optimistic” about the party.

The comments come ahead of today’s leadership talks in Dumfries.