THE SNP are planning to launch a “new initiative on independence” in the summer. If so, now is a good time to remind them they need to get the rest of the independence movement involved to ensure this “initiative” is as broadly based as possible.

There will be those who suggest the SNP can go it alone without the limp support of the pesky Greens or the strident criticisms of “the electorally irrelevant” socialists. But they are wrong.

The SNP, SSP and the Greens launched the Scottish Independence Convention in 2005 on the understanding we could achieve far more by “tying our ropes together”.

“Yes Scotland” was built on the same basis. We engineered broad support because the SNP accepted that advocating Scotland’s democratic right to self-determination did not make you a nationalist, it made you a democrat.

Mhairi Black and Tommy Sheppard used these pages in recent weeks to reiterate the need for an honest and thorough examination of why the SNP-led campaign was defeated last time. They themselves offered no answers however.

Only Jim Sillars has stepped up to the plate in this regard so far. In his book In Place of Failure he concludes that we lost the debate on the economic argument, over the currency issue and on the promise of secure pensions.

One crucial weakness of “Yes Scotland”, in my view as a board member, was that it was too easily dismissed as a front for the SNP. It was too closely linked with the Scottish Government’s White Paper when it should have been built around a democratically agreed common policy and approach.

Neither did we do enough to make clear independence was not a legal or constitutional goal so much as the gateway to a society where Scotland’s grotesque inequalities, economic stagnation and neo-liberal exploitation could finally be eradicated.

We lost ultimately because the SNP’s dominant vision of independence was too conservative. They wanted to keep the pound, keep the Queen, stay in Nato and continue to allow the corporate manipulation of our economy because they were trying to woo conservative Scotland.

Whatever our differences, we all accept on the Yes side that we will not win next time without understanding why we lost in 2014.

Today the SNP suggest a Brexit vote on June 23, where Scotland opts to Remain, will “inevitably” trigger Indyref2.

But their case is for me unpersuasive. First, it implicitly concedes a Remain vote pushes Indyref2 further into the long grass. Second, a Westminster that is wallowing in a Leave win will never concede another legal plebiscite. And that is where the power to hold one still rests.

But most importantly we would simply not win a second independence vote on that basis. Scotland’s EU membership is not in my view the best ground on which to fight a second vote.

The debate must centre rather on the standard of living of Scottish voters, the state of the economy, the need to address Scotland’s shocking and chronic social ills and the denial of sovereignty.

To win that second vote whenever it takes place, the SNP need non-nationalist supporters on side. They must fully appreciate the Scottish Socialist Party, RISE, the Radical Independence campaign and indeed most Yes voters are not nationalists.

Moreover, we in the wider independence movement cannot be held accountable for SNP decisions we do not support. Retaining the unfair council tax after they long promised to repeal it was one such mistake. So is claiming to be anti-austerity and then making cuts at both Holyrood and local government level.

Neither abandoning their promise to end fuel poverty in Scotland by 2015 nor overturning their anti-Nato membership help the case for independence in the progressive urban Scotland I know well. The SNP and the wider independence movement are synonymous in the public’s eyes. We need clear separation and that’s the irony at the heart of Scotland’s independence movement we are all part of – it needs to be broadly based.