SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has called on his party to “consider” setting up a unit to police abusive “cybernats” online.
The term has loosely come to define a hardcore fringe of Yes supporters who harass and intimidate opponents on social media
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly condemned the group, but efforts to root out online abuse have so far failed.
Mr Blackford, appearing before MPs on the home affairs committee, said that “nobody should suffer abuse on social media of any form whatsoever”.
He also backed a proposal, suggested by committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper, to create a unit within the SNP that would rebuff any online abuse.
Ms Cooper said: “Do you or has the party ever considered doing any kind of online rebuttal?
“If for example somebody was being trolled by people with an SNP symbol in their twitter feed, even if they are anonymous and it is not clear whether they are members, would the party consider having any kind of official SNP twitter response which just says, ‘not in our name’ or ‘please delete this’ or any kind of rebuttal?”
Mr Blackford responded: “I think we do have to consider those things, we do need to think about anything that would be helpful.”
The Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP was later pressed over whether the condemnation of cybernats from senior party officials had had any impact, he responded: “I hope it has, but I haven’t seen any evidence that would bear out.”
He added: “This isn’t just an issue for the SNP, this is an issue for all political parties.
“I don’t want to see anybody from whatever party they are being given abuse from anybody, it has to be rooted out in all cases.”