THE Pensioners for Independence group has warned against taking the case for a second independence referendum “off the table” and instead advocated renewed efforts to make the “progressive case for independence”.

That would include the Scottish Independence Convention and the SNP National Council producing an independence ‘Manifesto for the Many’.

At a recent meeting of the Edinburgh and Lothians branch of Pensioners for Independence, members approved a resolution to continue campaigning for indyref2.

The resolution, proposed by group convener Jenny Campbell, noted “the cacophony of voices advocating that the SNP take indyref2 ‘off the table’ given the General Election result in Scotland”, and also “that the outcome of the May 2016 Scottish election, the Holyrood vote in March 2017 and the June 2017 general election result has given the Scottish Government a “triple-lock” democratic mandate to hold a second independence referendum once the Brexit negotiations have been concluded”.

The resolution goes on to say that the independence movement must learn from the UK Labour Party’s election campaign, “which offered people hope, radical change and connected to young voters”.

As well as continuing to make the progressive case for Scottish independence, Pensioners for Independence aims to build the case that an independent Scotland will have more economic leverage to address the jobs crisis for the young, end zero-hours contracts, deal with the housing, protect pensions and much more. The group also calls on the Scottish Independence Convention and the SNP National Council to produce an independence manifesto — a short document setting out crucial policies and actions that address the issues facing Scotland’s working class majority.

“A ‘manifesto for the many’ can be an organising tool that will help build the Yes movement over the next 18 months,” states the resolution.

The group says that in the light of the First Minister’s pledge to work with the wider independence movement, it is important for resources to be committed to the Scottish Independence Convention as the body that represents the broader movement.

“We would hope that the SNP could have a dedicated organiser to the SIC and that this would be an ideal way to further the First Minister’s aims of working with the wider movement.

‘‘We feel that these resources could fund an organiser, perhaps drawn from the ranks of the excellent political workers who have now sadly lost their jobs since the election, to work with critical groups like Women for Independence and Pensioners for Independence.

“Such use of funds could immeasurably enhance the development of groups such as ours and help us grow a network of groups across the country.

‘‘This is one of our strategic aims, so that these groups could make use of national resources to fund their own local campaigns. So far we have a new group starting up in Glasgow.

We hope that the resetting of the campaign for Independence will not be simply a reactive waiting for Brexit to be a disaster, which really wouldn’t achieve independence in our view, but a very positive campaign built around our vision for the future, and backed up with solid research into the main issues.”

Pensioners for Independence was relaunched by East Lothian-based Peter Swain as he was concerned it had dropped off the radar after 2014. A letter written by the octogenarian to 96 newspapers produced a positive response and the Edinburgh and Lothians branch was set up with the Glasgow and West of Scotland branch formed a few weeks ago.

“One of the main reasons I was keen to get it going again was that pensioners were a large group of people we failed to persuade in sufficient numbers to support independence in 2014 so the aim is to get more information to retired people to try and convince them of the case for independence,” he said.