As the SNP cruises towards an increased majority in the Scottish Parliament in May, cementing its place as Labour’s long-term replacement in social democracy, a new coalition of radical left-wing parties and groups is hoping to fill a vacuum on the Nationalists' left.

RISE recently announced their candidates for the upcoming Holyrood vote, having risen from the ashes of a number of small parties, notably the Scottish Socialist Party, and groups who coalesced around the referendum.

The list includes some of the Scottish Left’s comparative big guns, including SSP co-convener Colin Fox and Radical Independence campaigner and columnist Cat Boyd, as well as Jean Urquhart MSP who was elected on the SNP ticket but resigned the whip over the party’s NATO membership concession.

A cursory look at the history of Scots politics suggests the left-wing furrow they intend to plough should be a fertile one.

On May 1, 2003, the SSP and Greens enjoyed unprecedented success for the Scottish parliamentary left.

The two biggest radical left-wing parties upped their representation in the chamber to 13 seats, with the Socialists and Greens sharing over 260,000 votes between them.

But it proved to be a false dawn and four years later only one of the 13 members of the so-called ‘Rainbow Parliament’ remained standing as their vote share more than halved.

The SSP suffered the most as the scandals surrounding leader Tommy Sheridan tore them apart. They ended polling day with just 12,000 votes across the country, a tenth of their landmark result in the previous election.

Nearly nine years later, Scottish politics has been completely redrawn from the ground up. What was once a debate centred on trifling issues such as housing, economics and healthcare is now divided simply into two camps — Yes or No.

As the referendum beckoned, much of the Scottish Left planted their flags firmly in the Yes camp, with radical activists heavily involved in campaigning for independence.

In many ways the indyref project felt like a rejuvenation of radical politics up north, with left-wing pro-indy groups springing up across the country as polls narrowed.

Now they are trying to speak with a different voice, to promote a version of radical socialism with independence at its heart.

When RISE launched last year, Colin Fox said they aimed to be the SNP’s "Left opposition”, filling a void left after Labour’s alleged abandonment of the social democratic dream and move towards centre-right populism and colonial intervention.

But the new alliance must now carve out a niche in a political spectrum dominated by Nicola Sturgeon’s party, a dominance which many on the Left unwittingly helped to create.

The unenviable task faced by both RISE and the Greens is to return a nuance to Scottish politics which has largely been eroded by the Yes/No debate.

Before the big vote in September 2014, the logic of many in the disparate Left was generally to back independence, and by extension the SNP, in order to achieve a Yes vote after which a radical parliament could be created.

Even as the SNP toned down their socialist posturing to appeal to centrist and right-wing voters; even after the party pledged to support Nato membership as opponents on the right questioned Scotland’s national security; even as the shaky oil price was allowed to form the basis of the Yes campaign’s economic argument, there was little left-wing critique of the SNP.

It was a gamble that has not entirely paid off.

The SNP has managed to harness the good feeling and momentum which preceded the referendum vote, and in Nicola Sturgeon has a party leader who does not polarise with dalliances into sexism and ill-grace in the way of her predecessor.

The positivity and engagement of the independence campaign has been transferred straight into the SNP’s account, and the more radical parties and activists who spent months helping to build up support for Yes are left scrabbling around for electoral alliances and without a coherent and credible voice.

The SNP has always been a party of absolutes. They will continue to fight for a Yes vote above all else, and have been instrumental in testing the bonds of the Union since the narrow defeat in 2014.

But they have been aided by the weak criticism put forward from their left, as the Greens and SSP made sacrifices for unity in the referendum scramble.

So where do the parliamentary left go from here?

It seems Solidarity, Tommy Sheridan's post-credibility vanity project, has accepted life in the SNP’s pocket by campaigning for list seats only in order to avoid splitting the pro-indy vote.

The Greens are in a more convincing position, with two seats to defend in the Scottish Parliament and an increased profile off the back of Patrick Harvie’s positive contributions to the referendum debate.

But they may find themselves squeezed by the SNP juggernaut, with too many people seeing them as a friendlier SNP rather than a strong separate proposition.

RISE has the potential to build a strong radical alternative but must look to bring Scottish politics away from the abstracts of the mythical #indyref2 and into the reality of ideologically-driven cuts from the Tories at Westminster.

It is not enough just to wish for a second chance at independence; the SNP have that sown up and no small party can compete with their well-polished, Pavlovian, anti-Westminster slogans.

The only way for RISE to find a place in a marketplace dominated by the Nationalists is to attack the weaker areas of the Scottish Government’s armour, and not just accept the scraps tossed from the top table.

Analysis by Alastair Brian, a digital news reporter at STV. You can contact him at alastair.brian@stv.tv.