Ash Regan, the former SNP leadership contender, who has joined Alba says many of her former colleagues in Humza Yousaf's party are very unhappy.

She said: "There are many in the party who are very disgruntled and maybe around 14 or 15 MSPs are significantly on the edge."

She said: "But dissent isn’t tolerated. It gets crushed. Tens of thousands of members have disappeared and several elected members have gone too. Clearly something is very wrong inside the SNP.

"I’d hoped there could be some unity of purpose among the dissenters, but in the end it seemed to evaporate. I think we could have forced change in the leadership’s thinking if we’d stuck together.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW: Regan hits out at Greens

“I know I’ll be in a group of one for a while and that it may be lonely, difficult and challenging. But I’m optimistic that others will join me as certain events unfold. I feel a lot better though, because I’m now free to talk about independence again. In the last few years that’s not been the case and there’s been no support from HQ or central office.”

She believes that Alba are more attuned to the mood of the Scottish public and that her old party had been hollowed out by careerists whose views don’t align with the core beliefs of the SNP.

“It’s sickening to see how activists who’ve given their lives and sacrificed careers being disparaged by those who’ve done little but exploit it.

“The SNP had no idea how unpopular gender reform was amongst the public. There was a feeling that it would just pass and people wouldn’t really care. I tried to warn them in cabinet when I used to deputise for Humza.

"On one occasion when I saw that gender reform was on the agenda, I told Nicola that campaign groups were actually forming to fight this. She flat out refused to countenance this. But these groups became a mighty campaigning force. I don’t think she or the party understood how determinedly ordinary females would organise and fight back.”