TOMMY Sheppard believes a “new approach” needs to be made to the English left as part of a strategy to build a fresh case for Scottish independence.

The Edinburgh East SNP MP suggested socialists south of the Border need to be persuaded that Scottish independence would benefit people across the British Isles.

He will put his ideas forward in full at a lecture tonight as reflections continue on how the case for autonomy can be renewed following Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to put on hold plans for a second independence referendum.

“I’ll be looking at what’s happened this year in terms of the General Election, where we are with Brexit, political trends, and trying to chart a course forward for the Yes movement and putting some ideas forward about why everyone is talking about reset,” Sheppard told The National.

“I will be considering where we are now, how we go forward with the independence campaign and how we relate that to the situation in the UK as well.

“One thing I’ll be arguing for is that we need to make a new approach to the English left to persuade them that the cause of Scottish independence is good for the cause of political reform across these islands.”

Sheppard, a former Labour Party official who joined the SNP in the wake of the 2014 referendum, continued: “I’ll be talking about how the independence movement should address Corbyn. I’ll spell that out on the night but one thing is that, where we can, we should be identifying ways in which we can work together.”

Sheppard will set out his ideas when he gives the annual Thomas Muir lecture to commemorate the life and work of the 18th-century Scottish radical.

Around 400 tickets had been sold for the event which is being held at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh at 7pm.

Muir was born in Glasgow in 1765 and dropped out of his divinity studies at the University of Glasgow at the age of 17 and began studying law. Following the outbreak of the French Revolution, he associated himself with the radical wing of the Whig party and began calling for political reform.

He was charged with sedition and stood trial in 1793 for “exciting a spirit of disloyalty and disaffection” after recommending Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.

Muir defended himself at the trial but was found guilty and sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay in Australia. He escaped in 1796 but died in France three years later, having been seriously injured on his return to Europe.

Mike Small, editor of Bella Caledonia magazine, who is a member of the Thomas Muir Memorial Committee, which organises the lecture, said the evening would include a book signing by Murray Armstrong, author of The Liberty Tree: The Stirring Story of Thomas Muir and Scotland’s First Fight for Democracy.

Small said: “The focus of the lecture is around the themes Muir dedicated his life to, liberty and freedom. Thomas Muir of Huntershill was a lawyer and a prime mover in the Scottish Friends of the People, an organisation set up in 1792 to press for a democratic franchise and annual parliaments.

“The lectures are an act of rediscovering Scotland’s radical past – and our almost completely ignored republican tradition – but also speak to contemporary threats against civil liberties and democracy, whether this be by the force of Brexit, the economic violence of austerity or the power of big data and the surveillance state.” Tickets, costing £5, are available at the door.