ANNE Dean, a Labour member for more than 16 years, says she feels “absolutely sickened” by the demise of the party she has voted for all her adult life.

She is among a small number of delegates from the East Renfrewshire branch attending the Perth conference this weekend.

But she is hopeful Kezia Dugdale’s federalism plans may help turn around the fortunes of her party.

“It is something I have supported for a long time and I believe it will help bring back some of the younger people who may have left us,” she said.

“I believe it has struck a very positive chord in the party.”

Dean, who is in her 50s, voted No in the independence referendum, Remain last June, and insists she will vote No again in any new independence referendum believing that Scotland “cannot afford to be independent.”

The economic debate surrounding independence is picked up with glee time and time again by party members and delegates.

Speaker after speaker is only too keen to point out Scotland’s £15 billion deficit last year, and some of the biggest claps and cheers among the audience in the half filled conference hall is when there is talk of opposition to a second independence referendum.

Like others, Dean says, with a smile, no new arguments have been put forward by the SNP since the September 2014 vote.

She says if Scotland votes Yes in a new indy vote, she would probably leave – to Denmark or Sweden.

But when pointed out that these small, independent nations are doing pretty well for themselves in Europe, she doesn’t, nevertheless, think an independent Scotland would do likewise.

“I don’t think my pen would work anywhere near a Yes box,” she says.

“The vast majority of our exports go to the rest of the UK and to walk away from the UK doesn’t make sense. May be we could just about survive but it would mean a huge fall in our standards of living.”

Dean, a community nurse, is not going to change her mind over the next few years in her opposition to Scottish independence. But another delegate perhaps takes a less hard and fast approach. Peter O’Donnghailie, a Labour party candidate for Highland Council in May, reads The National every Tuesday for the Gaelic column, and was a Yes voter in 2014.

But he now says he would not back independence in a second vote.

The 57-year-old crofter, who lives on Skye, has thrown his weight behind Dugdale’s federalism plans.

“I did vote Yes rather reluctantly but the federalism proposals fit into my sense of who I am, more than Scottish independence does really,” he says.

“I feel Hibernian British and I think the federalism reflects my own identity.”

Cat Headley, a former parliamentary candidate in last year’s Holyrood elections, says the federalism plan is “the start of a conversation” across the UK.

“By grabbing the agenda, I think we will bring people in from across the United Kingdom and have this conversation about giving power to people in their everyday lives,” she says.

“A second independence referendum isn’t inevitable, although it would be foolish to predict the future after the events of last year.”