WHAT will dominate the Scottish election?

For most independence supporters a clear indyref2 manifesto commitment and an SNP working majority at the end of it are all that matter. There’s tacit agreement such an outcome will force Boris Johnson to hand over official Section 30 powers or persuade Nicola Sturgeon it’s time to find a Plan B. Either outcome represents a step beyond where we are today, so the prospect of an SNP majority government is enough to satisfy most Yessers.

Policies? Not so much.

The campaign itself? It’ll probably boil down to a few leadership debates where Nicola Sturgeon dissects Douglas Ross.

SNP probity? Wait for the inquiry reports and expect a few sacrificial lambs.

Big stuck societal problems? They’ll get sorted after indy.

It’s all eyes on the prize – and at a crucial time in Scotland’s history, with dozens of opinion polls registering a Yes majority, there’s a lot to be said for a single-minded approach.

But there’s another option – making this a real, full-blooded, visionary election campaign that gives voters a glimpse of Scotland’s independent future, beyond our current state of stuckness, mitigating Westminster’s worst excesses.

The election campaign should not just be one long assertion that we need independence but a revelation showing voters WHY we need it by boldly tackling the big issues that membership if UK PLC will never let Scotland properly fix.

Essentially, the Holyrood election matters not just for its outcome but also in itself.

Yes, I know it’s easier to have an illicit dive into the comments beneath a salacious story – and there are plenty of them about. But unless Scots are to descend into a Telegraph-style political world, where reward is dictated by clicks and junk politics becomes as irresistible, all-pervasive and debilitating as junk food, then we must go cold turkey, resist descent into the personality issues and dogma that drive British politics, and get ourselves back to a place where policy actually matters.

WATCH: Boris Johnson claims SNP question on nuclear weapons was about indyref2

Whatever nonsense Jacob Rees-Mogg spouts, whatever distracting power grab Michael Gove suggests, no matter how wretched the Bombs not Bairns policy priorities of Boris Johnson – we have serious work of our own to focus upon.

Scotland, as a country preparing for independence, needs urgent, thorough debate about many things – the Covid recovery, a real green transition, the future of energy supply, using tax powers to combat inequality. All these and many other big issues have been put on hold – by the year of Covid, the years of Brexit and before that, by the long sleepy decades when it looked as if constrained, devolved systems were as good as Scots were ever going to get.

Those years will soon be over – are we ready for the truly epic possibilities that lie ahead?

Do we want to keep freezing the grossly unfair and regressive council tax or are we ready to depart from British templates and replace both the council tax and the broken business rate system with a flat rate property and land tax as the Revive Coalition proposed yesterday in its Our Land report?

Sure, we’ve all got angry about a system that lets the Queen pay less in rates for Balmoral than the local school – but what about getting even with a new, progressive local taxation system that finally taxes big landowners instead? Who doesn’t support Revive’s call for a maximum land acreage – except of course the 432 individuals and interests currently hogging half of Scotland’s private land? The next Scottish Government could change that using Holyrood’s existing powers.

Are we going ahead with a national energy company as Nicola Sturgeon once promised, to combat fuel poverty and the warped, fixed energy market created by Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation 30 years ago?

Are we ready to use Holyrood’s limited tax-raising powers to offset growing inequality? Will the Scottish government make a massive investment and mind-leap to create the digital society developed in Estonia – where billions aren’t wasted in unclaimed benefits and person years aren’t wasted in form-filling thanks to a truly joined-up state? How do we set up a new care system that builds on free personal care – initially at least within the constraints of Holyrood’s limited borrowing and taxation powers?

I’ll put a wee bet that not one of these issues is raised in an election debate or party manifesto.

Who will be to blame if vital issues are not discussed?

The SNP stands accused of losing focus and ploughing parliamentary time and energy into legislation on identity issues. Labour stands accused of failing to urge greater use of tax powers lest that makes Holyrood look far more capable than Westminster. The Conservatives have squandered 40% of British exports by “taking back control” from Brussels and proved contracts for chums matters more than fairness or effectiveness – even in a pandemic. The Greens are better known for identity politics than a coherent Green recovery. And the media, understandably, has focused on the health and social care issues arising from the pandemic rather than the long-term lessons for Britain’s ‘race-to-the-bottom society. And then there’s us – the electorate. Knackered.

BUT it’s time for Yessers to get back on the horse or risk being left betwixt and between.

On the one hand, it is now impossible to visualise Scotland’s policy future without immediately hitting the obstacle of Scotland’s constitutional status.

That alone makes vigorous, visionary policy debate the easiest way to spell out the chronic limitations of the status quo.

Trying to “build back better” without knowing which powers Holyrood will lose, retain or acquire over the next 10 years is like trying to buy a new car without a budget, expected milage or number of drivers.

It’s like trying to lay out a garden without knowing its size, orientation or soil type.

We are indeed stuck in a Groundhog Day where it seems easier to buy another window box than tackle the knotted jungle outside – easier to take sides and fall prey to gossip, speculation and innuendo than move stubbornly back to the arena at which Scots once excelled.

Ideas. Debate. Systems. Planning. Renewal. Engineering the shape of a new country.

This election campaign should be showing voters that Scotland is ready for independence because supporters are ready to tackle the truly big issues that we all know need fixing.

That’s the best way to shine a positive light on a future beyond the Union.

Staying part of the UK means piecemeal reform at a glacial pace and fear about moving too far from British norms and ancient, broken templates of market domination and non-intervention.

Land reform is a case in point.

We don’t need independence to make a real start on equalising the control of land (as the Revive report makes clear) – but the process of tugging at one part of centralised, top-down, establishment-controlled Scotland quickly unravels other parts of it.

How do we have community input to rural planning in a future where a single laird or private company doesn’t call the shots, for example, when most Scottish “local” authorities are currently the size of small countries?

We need to have unthought British norms sufficiently to walk out of the prison door with confidence and some well-proofed plans. If that process doesn’t start in the next seven weeks, then when?