SCOTLAND could become independent without another referendum, a senior SNP has claimed.

Joanna Cherry QC, the party’s justice spokesperson at Westminster, said a  “democratic event” such as a general election would be enough.

She noted a referendum had resulted in a No vote in the 2014 referendum.

Unionists called Ms Cherry’s intervention “dangerous and ill-judged” and said Nicola Sturgeon should disown them.

The comments come amid a growing acceptance within the party that Theresa May is highly unlikely to permit Holyrood to hold another referendum in this parliament.

Ms Cherry’s proposal, made at a fringe event on the opening day of the SNP conference in Glasgow , is completely at odds with the SNP leadership’s public position.

Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly cited the 2014 referendum as the “gold standard” and said it should be applied to any future vote, with Holyrood running the process under powers granted by Westminster through a so-called “Section 30” order.

However Ms Cherry said there might not have to be any referendum vote at all.

She said that if Labour won a general election but without an outright majority, the SNP could demand the abolition of Trident or a Section 30 order as the “price of our support”.  

But she then went on: “Our aim is to make Scotland an independent country, but I would remind you that Scotland voted against that in 2014.

“There has to be a democratic event, and I choose those words wisely, it doesn’t have to necessarily be a referendum, it could be something else, like a general election.

“But there has to be a democratic event. In the meantime we will do what we have always done as SNP politicians and push for more powers for Holyrood.”

Ms Cherry, who was first elected the MP for Edinburgh South West in 2015, is currently asking delegates at conference to elect her to the party’s ruling national body.

A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: "Every political party agreed in 2014 that a referendum was the only way to decide on Scotland’s future. 

"Not only is the SNP refusing to accept the result, now we have senior MPs suggesting they’d declare independence as and when they please.

"This kind of arrogant nationalism has no place in any functioning democracy. Nicola Sturgeon needs to disown this nonsense from Joanna Cherry immediately."

A Labour party spokesperson said: "As Jeremy Corbyn made clear during the General Election, we’re not doing deals or coalitions with anyone. We are campaigning for a Labour government.

“A General Election is about choosing the UK government,for senior SNP MPs to claim it could be used as a proxy for an independence referendum is false, dangerous and treating the electorate with contempt.”

Pamela Nash, chief executive of the anti-independence group Scotland in Union, said: “These dangerous and ill-judged comments from Joanna Cherry show that the SNP is determined to achieve independence by any means possible.

“We know that Scotland does not want a divisive and unnecessary second independence referendum, so SNP politicians are concocting ways to bypass the views of voters.

“Nicola Sturgeon must urgently clarify this situation."

An SNP spokesperson said: “The SNP's longstanding policy, which is set by the membership, is that independence would only be achieved through a referendum, and it is a democratic disgrace that both Labour and the Tories would stand in the way of the people of Scotland having the right to decide the country’s future."