AN SNP activist is suing the party over new rules which make it harder for MPs to swap Westminster for Holyrood.

The legal claim centres on a new process announced by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in July, which means MPs would have to resign from their seat in the Commons as soon as they are selected to run for the Scottish Parliament.

It was branded unfair by MP Joanna Cherry QC, who subsequently withdrew her effort to become the Edinburgh Central candidate for the Holyrood election next year.

David Henry, an organiser for the party’s Edinburgh Pentlands constituency association and the secretary of the Sighthill and Stenhouse branch, is bringing forward a court action over the rules.

He told the Sunday National: “I have the best interests of the party at heart.”

The activist is suing the SNP for £5000 in membership fees and donations to the party.

The legal action names SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, business convener Kirsten Oswald and party governance officer Ian McCann.

In documents lodged with Edinburgh Sheriff Court and seen by The Times newspaper, Henry says: “All of this was in good faith because I believed the party was a force for good and that it abided by its constitution.

“The recent events prove that I have been misled and the respondents have failed to provide any evidence that the NEC acted in accordance with the standing orders of the National Executive Committee.”

When Cherry withdrew her attempt to be the Edinburgh Central Holyrood candidate she stated: “It is unprecedented in our party’s history of dual mandates to demand that a parliamentarian make themselves and their constituency staff unemployed in order to be eligible to be a candidate. “It is particularly unreasonable to demand this in the middle of a pandemic.”

She has also accused members of the NEC of pushing “personal vendettas”.

Writing in The National last week, she claimed they were using their positions to “clear the field of competition for their own candidacy bids or those of their friends”.

The SNP has consistently denied that the new rules were aimed at Cherry, previously stating the new approach would guarantee a “full-time commitment from day one and minimise the disruption to voters”.