SCOTS Tory leader Ruth Davidson was not slow to put the boot in. "Waving the white flag," she cried, after Kezia Dugdale suggested she would not stand in the way of Labour MSPs who wished to argue for independence.

The Scottish Labour leader's comments were surprising, given the prominent role she played in the Better Together campaign.

But they reflect the hard political realities facing her party. As she acknowledged, 30 per cent of Labour supporters voted Yes in last year's referendum. The vast majority of them switched to the SNP in May's General Election and, according to the polls, will stick with Nicola Sturgeon's party in next year's Holyrood vote.

Ms Dugdale has the unenviable task of trying to win them back and she believes relentless hostility to independence is not the way to go about it.

Ms Davidson, by contrast, has no need to sound diplomatic. Tory supporters were solid in their support for No. She can happily wave a red, white and blue flag.

Ms Dugdale is keen to sound open and democratic. She does not expect to find herself twisting the arms of too many colleagues.

While thousands of Labour voters came out for Yes, one of the more surprising aspects of last year was how few high profile party figures followed suit.

In the early days of the campaign, Yes Scotland tried hard to promote Independence for Scotland, the group founded by former professional wrestler Allan Grogan. It was soon exposed as sham when supporters were revealed to be members of the SNP. It ended in embarrassment last week when it was fined for a serious breach of campaign rules.

Yes Scotland was able to parade a number of Labour supporters but none from the present generation of MSPs.

The best known 'defectors' were veteran former Scottish Labour chairman Bob Thomson; Sir Charles Gray, the leader of Strathclyde Regional Council from 1986 to 1992; Alex Mosson, the Lord Provost of Glasgow

from 1999 to 2003; and

John Mulvey, the leader of Lothian Region Council from 1986 to 1990.

One signing was so obscure he rather highlighted the Yes campaign's difficulty in recruiting people. Leslie Huckfield, the former MP for Nuneaton, had served in James Callaghan's government in the 1970s and, in fact, left Labour in protest at the Iraq war.

Even the ongoing referendum psycho-drama that was Henry McLeish ended in anti-climax when the former First Minister voted No.

There are no Labour MSPs biting their tongue about independence, Ms Dugdale's spin doctors would assure you. They share the view their primary objective - greater social justice - is best served within the UK. Independence, they remain convinced, would condemn ordinary people to even greater austerity than David Cameron and George Osborne. Ms Dugdale's emollient comments, we are told, do not indicate a softening of the party's position on independence.

There are, however, some in the party who fear that all the talk of a debate on independence will undermine a key task the leader has set herself: to rebuild a sense of Labour's mission. With voters saying the no longer know what the party stands for, fresh confusion is something Ms Dugdale can do without.