JOANNA Cherry has called for the creation of a new SNP group to work on “a copper-bottomed strategy” for securing indyref2.

The MP’s comments come after a leaked memo prepared by a Tory consultancy group suggested the UK Government were “war-gaming” ways to stop independence.

Writing in today’s The National, Cherry says the SNP should be doing some gaming of its own.

This, she says, would involve this new group devising a plan “to be employed to deal with the inevitable Tory dirty tricks when yet another mandate is secured”.

The MP suggests this new body should be made up of “a wide cross-section of the party, from centre to left and not just comprise of the usual suspects.”

READ MORE: Joanna Cherry: Salmondites? Sturgeonites? It doesn't matter when we work as one

She says “some of the brains in the SNP who are not employed full-time dealing with the Covid crisis would like nothing more than to contribute to the development of strategy but feel left out in the cold without an obvious avenue for such contributions to be meaningful”.

She says it’s wrong for the party “to predicate our entire strategy on the assumption that [The Tories] will do the right thing when their past behaviour suggests quite the opposite.”

Cherry says there needs to be “a strategy to fall back on when sleekit tactics of delay and avoidance are employed,” and a Section 30 order is not forthcoming.

She also says the party needs to challenge the narrative “which seeks to label us all as either Salmondites or Sturgeonites. “

“Most of us actually have minds of our own and what we all have in common is the desire for independence,” she writes.

In her column, Cherry also says she thinks it likely that delegates at the next SNP conference will “seize the chance to improve the governance of our party by electing an NEC which reflects the views of the membership and their desire for scrutiny and transparency”.