THERE will not be a second independence referendum before the next Scottish election, and the issue will “drag on and on”, Kenny MacAskill has predicted.

The former SNP Justice Secretary also dismissed Yes campaigners impatient for a vote as “a bit like lapel badge socialism - it’s fine to go around shouting, but what you have to be able to do is deliver it”.

He said that, with hindsight, Nicola Sturgeon might recognise she was "rash" to push for another vote in March.

He said the SNP would just have to endure the situation, and use the time to rebuild its case for leaving the UK, particularly its “Achilles heel” of 2014, the currency.

He told BBC Radio Scotland: “I think the likelihood of having an early referendum or even a referendum before 2021 is pretty hard to see.

“The likelihood is things are going to drag on and on. There’s not a clear way out of it.

“The people of Scotland are not going to want a referendum, nor vote Yes in a referendum - which is more important from an SNP perspective.

“t’s all very well to want a referendum, but you want to be able to deliver it.

“Sometimes you just have to thole it. I would like independence as soon as. I would have liked it in 2014, but we’ll get it when it’s most appropriate. And at the present moment the omens are not good and we’re better just getting on making Scotland a better place.”

He also said the SNP government was too distant from the business community, and was as not as respected as it was under Alex Salmond and John Swinney.

He suggested Mr Swinney’s successor as Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, had too much to do being in charge of economic policy while also being convener of the SNP.

He said: “I think the business community does not have the same respect towards the SNP as it had under the Swinney-Salmond position, and I think that has to be won back.

“The party as a whole, under the auspices First Minister, has to have a strategy to get out there and to engage more. There has to be a strategy and I think that’s missing.”