The SNP needs to get match fit in case it has to fight a second independence campaign sooner rather than later, an MP bidding to become the party’s depute leader has said.
Tommy Sheppard, a former Labour councillor who was elected to Westminster in the nationalist landslide in 2015, said the party needs an “organisational upgrade” after its massive growth in membership.
More than 120,000 people are now members of the SNP, compared to some 25,000 when the vote on independence was held in September 2014.
Mr Sheppard, one of four men vying to succeed Stewart Hosie as depute leader, said the main reason why he is running is to improve the organisation.
He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “This election isn’t about policy or being left or right. From my point of view the main point of this election, the main point why I am standing, is all about organisation.”
Mr Sheppard, who founded The Stand comedy clubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, added: “We used to have 20,000 members when we last looked at our rule book, we now have 120,000. We need an organisational upgrade inside the SNP and that’s what I am intending to try to deliver.
“I want to see members more active locally in their local branches and I want to see a full time network of professional organisers backing that up so that the SNP can become an even more effective campaigning machine than it already is.”
In the last two years, parties in Scotland have campaigned in elections for the European Parliament, Westminster and Holyrood, and also contested two referendums, one on independence in 2014 and this year’s vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Mr Sheppard said: “The thing we haven’t had time to do, because we’ve been constantly on a war footing, is to look at how we can cope with this new surge in membership and harness the abilities and talents of the 120,000 people who are now in the party.
“Whether they have been in for five months or 50 years, I think we can do a lot more in terms of engaging them in the political process and getting our party match fit for the challenges ahead, when we may be called upon sooner rather than later to lead another independence campaign.”
He also suggested reforms to the party’s policy process, saying: “There is much that we can do in terms of setting up policy commissions, both at national and regional level, to encourage policy debate at all levels in the party.”
Mr Sheppard stressed he has a “lot of experience” from decades of political campaigning in Scotland, but added: “I think the fact that I have come into the party from the Yes movement that ran the referendum campaign in 2012 to 2014 gives me a fresh perspective and I’d like to bring that to the leadership team.”
The other candidates standing for depute leader are MP Angus Robertson, MEP Alyn Smith and councillor Christopher McEleny.
