THERE'S been no shortage lately of people jumping to conclusions over the ongoing inquiries into the Scottish Government’s handling of the complaints against Alex Salmond.  

Even as I write, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is still giving evidence to the Holyrood enquiry. So just to avoid adding to the conclusion jumping and any further misunderstandings, let me say right here and now that what follows is not about defending or attacking any individual politician.  

Far and away, there are far more worthy and informed people that myself to draw legal and actionable conclusions from whatever the findings of the Holyrood enquiry might be.

So rather that write about what I don’t know or is not yet fully clear, I’ve chosen instead to throw my tuppence worth at an issue I feel justified in addressing. That, in a nutshell, is the need to get back to securing Scotland’s chances of securing independence.  

If there was one glaringly obvious takeaway that struck me from the contributions to the inquiry given by both Salmond and Sturgeon this past week it’s that here are two immensely, astute, articulate, and formidable politicians the calibre of which helps explain why the SNP has been in the dominant position it has for so long. 

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Whatever the accusations levelled at both, the one that cannot be cast at either is doubt over their respective contributions as First Ministers in bringing Scotland closer to independence that it has ever been.  

At least that’s how it was until some from both inside and outside the SNP decided to let personal vendetta’s get in the way of the politics of independence. The result has been a corrosive negativism that now taints both Salmond and Sturgeon themselves and has drip fed into the wider Yes movement. 

Make no mistake about it, the biggest loss in all of this is Scotland’s independence ambitions. 

Such ambitions can ill afford to cast such political talents adrift. This, however, has not stopped some from within the party and movement being hell bent in ensuring Sturgeon and Salmond are thrown overboard instead of having them around to steer the ship of national sovereignty into safe harbour.  

The ongoing enquiry was always going to be a tricky and damaging passage for the SNP especially with little over two months to go before the Scottish elections. 

Knowing this it would have made sound political strategic sense for those within the party to batten down the hatches and prepare a defensive bulwark against the unionist onslaught that would inevitably seek to exploit the divisions and uncertainty that the enquiry would throw up.  

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But hey no, let’s not do that. Far better that a political purging should be undertaken, one conducted by both sides of the so-called Sturgeon-Salmond divide against whoever didn’t fit their respective identikit profile of what a ‘good activist’ should be.  

It’s now been proved that the old myth of lemmings committing mass suicide is just that, a myth. The same unfortunately, cannot be said of the myth that Scots have a predisposition towards snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. For undeniably what we have witnessed these last few weeks has been an attempt by some pro-independence Scots to commit political mass suicide.   

Time and again, especially on social media, efforts would appear to focus exclusively on seeking the scalps of those deemed ‘revisionists’ or ‘slackers’ in the pursuit of independence. That any evidence of this was sometimes sparse to say the least didn’t matter a jot.  

The terrible irony here is that even if there has been some lethargy in moving forward with another referendum - and I believe there has -far more damage has now been done to the cause by stirring up internal bloodletting across the movement in efforts to try and push the pace and other issues. 

And, yes, I know debate is healthy and a sign of a fully working political party or movement, but it’s downright unhealthy and sometimes fatal when embarked upon without longer term strategic foresight.  

Only when the polls took something of a negative turn lately did some wake up to the damage being inflicted and ask themselves, hold on a minute is this wise?  

Others, meanwhile, still go about with a wrecking ball on Twitter and elsewhere on social media, maintaining their pro-Indy credentials, while either wilfully or innocently playing right into the unionists’ hands.  

Let’s be candid here. This has been a hellish period for the SNP and the Yes movement, and no amount of blaming it on unionists alone disguises the indisputable fact that what was a bad situation brought about by the Holyrood enquiry was only made worse by those within the SNP own ranks having a square go with each other. Meantime of course no one was landing a punch on the UK government’s continuing refusal of another referendum.  

As someone who has spent a good part of their working life, seeing up close what real dictatorships and politically dysfunctional so-called ‘banana republics,’ are like, I know that such accusations aimed at Scotland are patent nonsense and only to be expected from our unionist opponents. 

It doesn’t need me to remind readers that Scotland is held in high esteem in many places across the globe. But it speaks volumes when our failure to manage Scotland’s independence case allows its image and reputation to become hurt by self-inflicted wounds. 

There is a sobering lesson here for all of us whose hearts are set on independence. One that tells us that we must use the head as well as the heart and not let unbridled emotion get the better of our cause.  

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Just the other day, I noticed someone on Twitter declare that they “weren’t interested in a Yes movement, only in a Yes outcome.”  

I too place such as positive outcome above almost all else and empathise with the impatience 

that also underpins such a sentiment. But the fact is that we need both the SNP, and wider Yes movement to make that outcome become a reality.  

Considering the political difficulties faced by the Yes cause lately, it’s time every Scot desirous of independence understood the real meaning and value of solidarity and the damage wreaked when it’s dismissed.  

These weeks have been a sharp lesson in how Scotland’s independence hopes could so easily be forfeited were we to ignore that lesson. The need now is to regroup, pull together, move on, make up the lost political ground and train our sights again on getting that next referendum.