"Nicola Sturgeon announced plans in Easter for a summer campaign but Brexit has knocked that slightly sideways. We’re still trying to assess the impact of the [EU referendum] vote on June 23rd, but in as much as we now maybe engaging in a second referendum campaign sooner rather than later then the party is gearing up, but it will be more like an autumn initiative than a summer one," Shappard said.
Sheppard noted that rather than being a public campaign aimed at persuading wavering voters to back independence from the United Kingdom, the initiative will instead focus internally on the SNP’s own membership.
"Don’t expect to see a big poster campaign, it’s more of an internal political education, membership agitation campaign rather than a public campaign," Sheppard said.
The SNP is due to debate the issue of independence at its annual conference in October after Sturgeon said a second independence referendum was "highly likely" following the EU referendum result that saw 52 percent of UK voters back an exit of the European Union, while 62 percent of Scottish voters backed remaining in the block.
In 2014, over 55 percent of Scottish voters rejected secession during the referendum on Scotland's independence from the United Kingdom. The issue, however, remains on the Scottish agenda.
