A local councillor who quit the SNP over allegations of racism has launched a legal action suing the party for discrimination.

Yen Hongmei Jin claims party officials hampered her bids to become an SNP candidate in both the UK and upcoming Scottish Parliament elections because of her Chinese roots.

She also claims she reported allegations of racist behaviour by members - including an abusive email - to party officials as senior as chief executive Peter Murrell but no action was taken.

The councillor, who represents Lochar ward in Dumfries and Galloway, has now lodged a claim of race discrimination at an employment tribunal in a case believed to be the first of its kind against a political party in Scotland.

The SNP vehemently deny the claims.

Ms Hongmei Jin said: "I am disgusted with the SNP, it is no longer the party I believe in.

"It's not the people's party, it's not Scotland's party, they are just a party for themselves."

The politician received an offensive email from an SNP member in February last year in response to an invitation to a Burns Supper she was organising.

The email stated: "Bunch of a**eholes - supposedly Scottish too. They can stick their club right up their rectum for me. Pity we have to suffer them at Palmy."

Ms Hongmei Jin said she was in shock when she received the email after working hard for the party for many years.

"After everything I've done for he SNP, here I had a party member saying that I'm pretending to be Scottish and it's a pity they have to suffer us", she said. "I just couldn't believe it."

The email was forwarded to senior SNP officials, with Peter Murrell copied in, but Ms Hongmei Jin claims no action was taken.

She claims officials also failed to act when party members and a councillor walked out of a branch meeting because a Turk was elected as convener. The members are alleged to have questioned where all the "multicultural people" had come from to vote.

Ms Hongmei Jin said she got on well with local politicians and other party members until she decided to stand as a candidate in the 2012 council elections.

Documents lodged with the Employment Tribunal claim an SNP councillor asked her to remove her name from the Lochar ward ahead of the vote.

Ms Hongmei Jin refused and went on to win the seat.

The politician also claims she encountered problems during the candidacy selection process for last year's UK Parliament elections.

The alleged issues began in the aftermath of the Independence Referendum when the party received a massive influx of new members. New recruits in Miss Hongmei Jin's branch, Lochar and Mid & Upper Nithsdale, were allegedly assigned to another branch instead.

It is claimed that the party said it was caused by a computer error, but the tribunal documents allege this was orchestrated by party officials to help the winning candidate Emma Harper, who was secretary of the branch receiving the new members.

The papers state that Ms Harper - who eventually lost out on the seat to Conservative David Mundell - confessed to a party member that the move "was arranged by the SNP HQ in such a way that all the new local members would go to her SNP Dumfries East Branch so that she could win the selection process rather than the claimant".

Ms Hongmei Jin also claims her name was on a list of approved candidates for the Scottish Parliament elections - meaning she would have gone head to head with the existing MSP Joan McAlpine - but it was removed without explanation in June last year.

The councillor had already received correspondence from SNP HQ about being a potential candidate, but claims that when she later asked them why her name had been removed, she was told she was placed on the list in error and would need to attend a further selection meeting.

She was later refused as a potential candidate and decided to resign from the party.

Ms Hongmei Jin is now seeking compensation for the alleged discrimination.

An SNP spokesman said: "We strongly deny Cllr Yen's claims and we are confident they will be dismissed by the employment tribunal."

The tribunal claim is the latest in a number of alleged racist incidents within the party. Earlier this year, Dundee councillor Craig Melville quit his post after being accused of sending hateful text messages to a Muslim colleague, while North Lanarkshire councillor Julie McAnulty was accused of saying the party needed to get the "Pakis" out.