NICOLA Sturgeon seems determined to go ahead with the SNP’s summer initiative to persuade more Scots about the merits of independence. According to yesterday’s newspapers, details will be announced in the next few weeks. Far be it from a non-member to encourage second thoughts from the First Minister, but might it not be better to postpone such a campaign until the real moment arises – which could be soon – pro-indy activists beyond the ranks of the SNP are involved and convincing answers have been jointly agreed to all the difficult questions that will rightly arise?

When the “initiative” was revealed by the SNP leader to rapturous applause at her party’s conference in March, eyebrows were raised but expectations remained low. The idea of sending Stewart Hosie off on a Scotland-wide tour to galvanise support seemed frankly strange. Even before her former deputy blotted his copy-book, the earnest Dundee MP was hardly considered the ideal candidate to rouse the populace – especially in the midst of a summer packed with alternative attractions like an Olympic Games. Coming in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s own box-office defying run of gigs which culminated in an audience of 12,000 at the Clyde Arena, it almost seemed cruel to expect any lesser mortal to achieve the same thing – especially without the fair wind of a recent indyref campaign behind them to justify the whole exercise.

Most commentators dismissed the summer initiative as the easiest way for Nicola Sturgeon to placate activists disgruntled about the virtual absence of independence from the SNP’s Westminster and Scottish manifestos. Indeed there were rumours the summer effort wasn’t the SNP leader’s idea at all but the brainchild of the party’s MPs – bored with the thankless task of opposing the Government far from home, out of the limelight and desperate to do something that would connect them once again with Scottish voters and the turf of Scotland.

Whatever the motives, few wept when the initiative seemed to have gone out the window along with the wayward Mr Hosie who resigned unexpectedly in May, triggering a deputy leadership contest that has only now burst into life.

Meantime the backdrop has changed out of all recognition. Far from having to heat up the independence offering, the Brexit vote has put indyref2 on the front burner again, with the approval – or at least without much opposition – from No voters, including deputy Labour leader Alex Rowley and writer JK Rowling. Something quite profound happened as Scotland and England went their very different ways in the vote over EU membership last month – the unbridgeable gap between these two political cultures stood starkly revealed at last.

Why then, revert to an apparently half-hearted plan hatched in a very different political climate?

Is an SNP-led, MP-led talking tour in the latter half of the summer the right way to launch the cautious move towards indyref2?

On the upside, there’s nothing wrong with talking and a summer speaking tour could be seen as a more democratic and interactive way for MPs to “report back” after a long year and a particularly momentous month at Westminster. Once both parliaments resume, it will be impossible for elected members to get out, meet the public and hear their concerns. Correctly run, the summer initiative could be a giant listening mission which helps inform the First Minister about Scotland’s real aptitude for indyref2.

But there are drawbacks.

As Yes Campaign leader Dennis Canavan has pointed out, “a non-party political approach was vital in winning support during the 2014 referendum” and should be restarted to run indyref2. SNP figures like Mhairi Black have also called for the summer initiative to be a cross-party effort – likewise deputy leadership contenders Christopher McEleny, leader of the SNP group on Inverclyde Council and Tommy Sheppard MP who’s said; “We need to facilitate and lead a movement bigger than ourselves. We still have arguments to win. And they will be won by continually building alliances beyond the SNP.”

Can that be done with a summer initiative in which neither the Scottish Greens nor pro-independence groups like the Common Weal, Radical Independence Campaign, RISE or Women for Independence are involved?

In 2014, a network of local Yes groups spontaneously organised to create a very effective Yes Alliance – not the product of top-down organisation by the folk at HQ but – just for once – a genuinely diverse, co-operative, home-grown grassroots movement. Even though this Yes Alliance ultimately lost, it was an important, powerful and beautiful phenomenon. A kind of loftier, mair inclusive, fitba free Tartan Army – a loose grouping and yet a firm identity to which many Scots still feel connection and loyalty – even folk who have since become SNP members.

Why would any political leader not want this kind of posse behind her? OK, perhaps the SNP leadership judges that the Yes Movement will fall into line whether formally involved in planning or not. Certainly it’s easier to confine indyref2 to the SNP – itself a massive quasi-movement – than expand the planning group to include folk without the SNP’s hierarchy, internal discipline and elected mandate.

But Scotland’s changed since 2013 when indyref1 was being prepared. There’s been a change of SNP leader and First Minister of course – but there’s also been a change among us. So many Scots say they “woke up” when the big question was first put, and tens of thousands are still wide awake, questioning every aspect of “ae’ been” that still bedevils Scotland. Waiting for instructions from on high is no longer an option for folk who’ve been meeting, organising, acting, fundraising and campaigning their way through the months and years since September 18.

It may go against habit, temperament and the strategic instincts of policy wonks but the opportunity for a genuine partnership between the SNP leadership and autonomous, well-run, grassroots all-party and no-party local Yes groups is there to be embraced. Doing so would signal so much more than a willingness to share by Nicola Sturgeon – important though that would be for the SNP leader. It would signal an end to the old British way of doing politics, where a narrow elite decides strategy, directs resources and jockeys for power, while the wider population look on. Voting patterns prove Scots have become heartily sick of “sit there till we fix you” Socialism – a “sit there till we fix it” independence campaign may prove no more popular.

There’s far too much at stake for any part of the next independence effort to go off half-cocked. Since the Brexit vote the whole world is watching Scotland again and it would knock confidence here if indyref2 is like a retread of indyref1 – especially its relatively damp squib of a launch.

Equally we have a deputy leadership contest which is a real contest and a much-needed opportunity for the SNP to review its stance on involving non-party members – and much besides. Is there really a need for a summer, SNP-only campaign when the prospect of a Yes Alliance 2 is round the corner?

It would be good if the SNP and Scottish Greens spent the summer linking up with the rest of the independence movement – as equals, not managers.

There’s a Scottish Independence Convention meeting soon (an umbrella group for all indy-related groups) – attendance would be a very important start.