GRASSROOTS activists have launched a new campaign for Scottish independence amid growing frustration over the lack of progress under Nicola Sturgeon.

The cross-party Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) announced a fundraising appeal on Monday for a fresh organisation aimed at driving support for a Yes vote over 50%.

If the appeal is successful, the new body will provide “front-foot media handling, strategic support, resources, messaging and the administrative capacity” to help persuade No voters.

It will also bypass SNP ministers to “develop strategy”, undertake public opinion research, and develop “messages and campaign materials for the movement”.

The move could potentially sow confusion over key issues such as the economy and currency, as the SNP leadership is firmly wedded to its controversial Growth Commission blueprint for independence.

The announcement comes less than a week after the First Minister downplayed the prospect of a second independence referendum before the 2021 Holyrood election.

Although she said Brexit had strengthened the case for independence, she also said SNP members must wait “impatiently” and show “pragmatism, perseverance and patience”.

However others at last week’s SNP conference wanted a quicker pace, with SNP MP Angus MacNeil saying the best chance of independence was “here and now”.

The proposed campaign vehicle is also a tacit repudiation of Yes Scotland, the main outfit used to promote a Yes vote at the 2014 referendum.

Ostensibly cross-party, in reality it was dominated by SNP money and personnel, leading to tensions with the Green and Socialist arms of the Yes movement.

Yes Scotland Ltd remains a mothballed company under the control of an SNP lawyer.

The Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) said funds raised through the Thisisit.scot website would be used to push support for a Yes vote “consistently beyond 50% in the polls”.

It said the new campaign vehicle would help coordinate grassroots activity and liaise with the media, including providing a “rebuttal” service.

Like Yes Scotland, which needed an £825,000 bail-out from the SNP in 2014, the new organisation is supposed to raise funds and become financially “self-sustaining”.

The SIC is an umbrella body made of pro-independence groups and parties, including the SNP, Scottish Greens, Scottish Socialists and the Radical Independence Campaign.

SIC convenor Elaine C Smith said: “The dream of Independence for Scotland has been kept alive by all the various groups who keep working, campaigning and marching.

“Now we’d like to get an official campaign up and running to allow us to help organise further.

“At almost every meeting or event I have attended over the past four years I have been bowled over by the self-organising and work that is going on across the country.

“However I am always asked about a central resource that can distribute and communicate what’s going on with all the other groups. That’s what we aim to try and provide.”

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “I am delighted with this initiative. I have a burning desire to see a fairer and wealthier Scotland and the delivery of an inclusive open society - independence offers that opportunity.

“We need to inspire the people of Scotland to come with us on the journey to independence. “Locally Yes Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh are showing the leadership and engagement that is essential in growing the level of support for independence."

Scottish Green co-convenor Maggie Chapman said: “I want our next campaign for independence to be our last campaign for independence, because we must win it.

“A strong and effective campaign organisation will be crucial to that success. Working across the independence movement, that’s what SIC is determined to deliver.”

Women for Independence said: “This funded initiative by the SIC will allow our members and the grassroots movement as a whole to pull together, collaborate on research, projects and campaigns in order to show the positive case for an independent Scotland that will not only be fairer for women but for everyone who calls Scotland their home.”

LibDem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "I was under the impression that there was already an organisation devoted full time to campaigning for Scottish independence and it was this Scottish Government. The SNP's own Growth Commission admits that independence means years of cuts to public services."

Pamela Nash, chief executive of the anti-independence group Scotland in Union, added: “The nationalist movement will never stop campaigning for a second independence referendum, even though the majority of people in Scotland want to move on from the divisions of the past. Rather than spend time setting up an organisation in the hope of creating more constitutional chaos, most people would rather there is a fresh focus on improving schools, our NHS, and the economy.”