Yes campaign will reconvene in the summer, says Jim Sillars

The Yes campaign for Scottish independence will reconvene in the summer, according to former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars.

Writing for Holyrood, Sillars says he understands from his sources that the campaign will “rebuild its organisational structures at the community level” after the EU referendum vote in June.

This follows Nicola Sturgeon announcing her party’s intention to launch a new drive in the summer to convince voters of the case for independence.

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Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, the SNP leader said it was “ridiculous” to claim the case for Scottish independence has been damaged after the SNP lost its majority.

Sturgeon said: “I recognise in the campaign and I recognise now that those of us who have work to do to address the issues that meant that people, many people who could have backed the Yes campaign in the referendum, ultimately didn’t.”

Sillars, who campaigned for Yes as part of the Radical Independence Campaign, said the election result shows “the idea of independence is still in the ascendant”.

He writes: “My information is that once the EU referendum is out of the way, the Yes side will be coming back together, to rebuild its organisational structures at the community level, and start to produce policies around which the movement can re-launch an educational campaign to take us from that 45 per cent in 2014 to a winning number in the years immediately ahead.”