TAKE your pick from the party hierarchy’s conference injunctions: Nicola Sturgeon’s opening plea for “cool heads and patient persuasion”, Ian Blackford urging us to “keep the heid” and “keep the faith”, Keith Brown suggesting that if we just ca’ canny and demonstrate competence, the sheer force of democratic logic will force Boris into a U-turn and agreement to a second independence referendum. The SNP party line could not be clearer if it were laid out in neon lighting.

And today, St Andrew’s Day, the First Minister will make a speech which will resonate perhaps more than any other she’s given. One being made a few short months before the next Scottish election and speaking to a country, in her own words “on the cusp of independence”.

The question for me is, will that condition be more or less likely to obtain if the broader Yes movement, and her own party, keep calm and carries on? Or will we risk losing the democratic means to gain independence because we lacked the bottle at the 11th hour? Will the stars have aligned when we are looking sideways instead of up?

I have zero personal axes to grind when analysing this conundrum. It would seem to me madness to suggest ditching a party leader with such an enviable national and international reputation. And while I have my own thoughts on the Gender Recognition Act saga – which I’ve dispatched to the consultation – that and some other issues seem to me peripheral to the main event; the strategy most likely to bring about independence.

For me the issue is very plainly and simply not about personalities, it’s about chronology.

One school of thought, endorsed by the SNP brass, is that the reason polling has consistently put support for independence north of 50%, is because our Government, not least in the pandemic crisis, has displayed maturity and grasp while fessing up to any missteps. The contrast with the Westminster soap opera, they argue, has persuaded more and more Scots that the constitutional status quo is actually the riskiest option on offer.

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And there is little doubt that the more the Scottish electorate see and hear of the Prime Minister, the more inclined they are to see Westminster as the iceberg rather than the lifeboat.

Yet the problem, as I see it, is that playing a long game of patience is itself a high-risk strategy. Not least because the UK Government’s Internal Market Bill will disempower Holyrood as it is designed to do. Not much point of having a Parliament in name only. Not much point in gaining a healthy majority in favour of independence without the political weaponry to utilise it.

In a few short weeks, the full cost of Brexit, even with some cobbled together last-gasp compromise, will become all too clear.

You can imagine the scenario only too vividly. The economy totters further into the red. Kent becomes a car park. Essential and perishable goods fail to arrive on time. The UK Government flails around trying to blame Covid, or those perfidious Europeans, or anyone or anything but themselves, aka the architects of this monstrous act of self-harm.

The new US administration, alarmed at the possible impact on Irish peace, tells Boris where to stuff his chlorinated chicken.

And Scotland, shorn of the ability to borrow against the gathering storm, is once more at the mercy of Westminster’s whims. Self evidently at the mercy of a determined Unionist campaign which is already in full flight.

No patient persuasion for Michael Gove and his “Union unit” as they scurry hither and yon plastering Union flags on anything that doesn’t move quick enough. Wilfully pursuing projects and spending areas which were once the sole prerogative of the devolved Scottish Parliament before the UK Government annexed all powers repatriated from Brussels for their own purposes.

I honestly believe it’s folly, however well-intentioned, to carry on hoping that a slippery, ethics-free PM such as Boris Johnson will ever “bow to the inevitable”. There were many thoughtful Conservatives who assumed Johnson would never contemplate backing Brexit, given his previous Euro credentials. Well, they got that fairly spectacularly wrong. And got their jotters for their trouble.

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This is neither a leader nor an administration which plays by any known rules or precedent. An administration which would cheerfully have shut down the Commons if they’d got away with it. Compared with which, hobbling Holyrood is small beer. Not least since they own the pub.

I don’t believe that those running the SNP are waging internecine war on the Yes movement. I really don’t. I do think that pursuing a strategy predicated on Boris Johnson doing the decent thing is the kind of false hope which gives dewy-eyed optimism a bad name.

There is one other factor. Out there in Scotland are not just people teetering on the brink of saying Yes. The Dalglish faction we might call them: mebbes Aye and mebbes Naw.

Out there in Scotland is a whole army already convinced of the urgent need to harness and utilise the energy which will bring more folks on board. To be frank, they are awfy weary of being asked to be patient. So when the First Minister addresses not just her party, but the larger audience outside this strange digitised gathering today, I beg her to remember the other P word. Scotland is not a revolutionary nation, but it can be a passionate one.

There is a whole lot of passion for the cause of building a new nation state with values far removed from those currently being espoused down south. A whole lot of anger at yet again punishing the poorest at home and abroad for the cavalier and sometime corrupt policies of those who will never know hunger or poverty.

Let’s make this St Andrew’s Day the one where we resolve to get off today’s bended knee and raise the Saltire for a fairer tomorrow.