Dundee’s SNP parliamentarians are to snub a pro-independence rally being organised in the city by disgraced former MSP Tommy Sheridan and the Dundee Yes Bus Team.
Mr Sheridan, who was jailed in 2011 for perjury, will stage a “family fun day” in the City Square on Sunday as part of his Hope Over Fear campaign, which seeks a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Other speakers at the event will include former Dundee University rector Craig Murray and singer Sheena Wellington.
Campaigners are being urged to travel to Dundee from Glasgow for the rally.
A post on Mr Sheridan’s Facebook page states: “Answer the call of our Dundee Yes family. Fill their square with Hope and Vision.”
But senior SNP figures will not attend the event, despite its promotion of Scottish independence and Dundee being hailed as Scotland’s “Yes City” in the run-up to the 2014 vote.
Dundee was one of only four council areas to vote for independence.
A spokesman for the Dundee branch of the SNP said: “Tommy Sheridan’s rally is not an SNP event, and no SNP parliamentarians will be speaking at it.”
He later confirmed that no MP or MSP would even attend the event.
Last week First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she would not share a platform with the firebrand politician.
She said he was “entitled” to his views, but that his past actions meant she would not be prepared to campaign alongside him.
“Tommy is not somebody I would choose to campaign side-by-side with,” she said.
“He believes in independence, he’s entitled to do that, and he’s entitled to campaign, but I won’t choose to be on platforms with him.
“I think there are a number of people, women in particular, that find it very hard to forget what Tommy to some extent allegedly did, and in other cases what he was found to have done, and I respect those views.”
It also emerged this week that John Marshall, Hope Over Fear’s head of security, has a string of convictions and was fined £400 at Hamilton Sheriff Court in July for shouting, swearing and threatening No campaigners.
Sunday’s rally will be the second major event organised by Hope Over Fear in the past month. On September 19 they held a rally in Glasgow’s George Square which has been given the nickname Freedom Square to mark the first anniversary of the independence referendum.
Mr Sheridan, who was MSP for the Scottish Socialist Party between 1999 and 2007, will stand as a candidate for his Solidarity party at next year’s Holyrood elections.
Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie was criticised for appearing at a pro-independence rally at Fat Sam’s in Dundee that Mr Sheridan also spoke at.
The two men did not share a platform as Mr Sheridan had left before Mr Hosie arrived. The day-long event was preceded by a pipe band procession from Albert Square.
An un-named senior SNP source told the Sunday Herald that Mr Hosie’s appearance at the event was “totally unnecessary”, but the MP, who had just been elected as the SNP’s deputy leader, told The Courier: it was “an anti-poverty, anti-hunger fundraiser… and an important thing to support.”