A PLEDGE set up by members of the SNP about women’s rights has been dismissed as an "unregulated" and "disingenuous".

The online petition, which was launched at the party’s conference earlier this year, has been backed by prominent SNP politicians including Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry.

However, it has been contentious among some members of the party, who claim it has transphobic undertones and is an attempt to disguise these as concerns about women’s rights.

Now critics have questioned the level of support for the online petition, which currently has more than 3,000 signatures, after to emerged that anyone could sign the pledge, regardless of party membership.

People are also able to sign multiple times if they set up new email addresses.

Some of those signing claim their names are ‘Nicola Sturgeony’ and ‘Betty Bigot’, among others.

Fiona Robertson, the equalities convener for the SNP, said: “This ‘pledge’ is just an unregulated petition, so, while the text is concerning, the number of signatures is not.

“I’ve seen some people making the patently ridiculous assertion that this number represents women in the SNP.

“There’s no restriction [or regulation] on gender - we know a lot of men have signed it; party - because you’re not asked for your membership number, or even existence, - since you can just make a bunch of new email addresses and sign as many times as you want.

This means that anyone can sign it from anywhere in the world as many times as they like, and are doing so.

“It’s unreliable, uninformed and misleading so it cannot be used as any indication of how widespread support for the pledge is in the SNP.

“I hope the people involved stop being so disingenuous.”

At the launch of the pledge, a group of female SNP members spoke about how they felt they were close to leaving the party over its stance on the Gender Recognition Act reforms, which have sparked debate over the past year.

The Scottish Government is proposing to allow transgender people to self-declare their gender, instead of having to go through invasive medical tests.

However, some campaigners say this will impact on the safety of women’s spaces and be detrimental to women’s rights.

Some said they were being labelled transphobes for raising concerns, so much that they felt pushed underground.

Those in support of the pledge have previously denied any claims it is transphobic or has anti-trans sentiment.

The Herald on Sunday contacted the convener of the Women’s Pledge group, but received no reply.