Labour’s deputy leader in Scotland has said it was "wrong" for the party to have been part of Better Together during the independence referendum. 

Jackie Baillie said the party would run its own “distinctive” campaign in any future vote on the constitution.

The Dumbarton MSP was a director of the official campaign body which saw the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats join forces to push for a no vote in the 2014 referendum.

While No won that referendum by 55% to 45%, Labour has suffered a string of poor results in subsequent elections.  Last May they won 22 seats at the Holyrood election, their lowest total in the history of devolution.

During a fringe event at Scottish Labour conference, a delegate said Labour had overwhelmingly paid the political price of the Better Together arrangement. He asked Baillie how the party could avoid making the same mistakes if they were compelled to fight another referendum.

She said: “We have been telling everybody for years that the Tories were terrible. And we cooperate with them. Don't get me wrong, there was a greater issue at stake, which was the future of the United Kingdom, but I think we were wrong to have done that."

Asked to clarify if she meant Labour should not have been in Better Together, she replied: "I think we should have run distinctive campaigns. Don't get me wrong, but that's what we choose to do at the time. 

"I think we would run distinctive campaigns in the future. It doesn't necessarily mean that we don't agree ultimately on the objective."

Baillie added: "It was the day after the referendum that struck me the most. The Labour Party in Scotland carried on as if it was business as usual. We failed to take a step back and reflect on the seismic difference within the country. 

"All this nonsense from the SNP about civic nationalism and a great debate, it was rubbish. 

"The Labour Party hall in Dumbarton was torched. It burned down during that referendum. There was graffiti put up about killing people who voted a particular way during that referendum.

"My own car window was stoned and shattered during that referendum. There was nothing civic joyous about what we went through. And we failed to reflect that back to the country and we carried on as normal.

"So I think we need to be very careful about what we do."

Scottish Conservative Shadow Constitution Secretary Donald Cameron said: “This is yet another sign of Labour's weakness when it comes to the Union.

“Ashamed of the success of Better Together, this comment shows how far Labour have moved away from their pro-UK past.

“Time and time again Labour have shown that they cannot be trusted to stand up to the SNP when it comes to independence.

“Already in coalition with the SNP in six Scottish councils, Labour continue to blur the line between themselves and the nationalists."

Meanwhile, at the same event, UK Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting insisted there would be no future "progressive alliance" with the SNP in the event of a hung parliament at the next election.

“They're not a progressive political party," he said. "The interesting thing about the SNP, because of their fundamental objective, the coalition is a really broad one, and it's not a coalition of the centre-left.”