LET’S be frank here: there’s about as much chance of the SNP leadership congratulating Joanna Cherry on being named one of Westminster’s most inspirational women as there is of them going all-out for independence any time soon.

“Nicola, will you be congratulating your colleague for bringing honour to your party by being recognised in this way?”

“Look, until we get that Covid under control, I’m only concentrating on the health of the people of Scotland.”

“How about you, Ian? You must be delighted for Joanna that she’s been given such a prestigious honour.”

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“Eh, well … I’m only focusing on that Ukraine right now. It’s what the people of Scotland elected us to do.”

The SNP high command have become very adept at side-stepping issues they find a bit, you know … cuspy. And there’s nothing more cuspy, it would seem, than the prospect of holding a second referendum on independence. Mibbees aye; mibbees naw, as another inspirational Scot might have said.

Those of us who feel that there’s a mandate from the people of Scotland to hold a second referendum are never slow to remind the UK Tories and their glove-puppets in the Labour Party of this. We point out that 10 elections in four different jurisdictions since 2014 have come and gone, and that each one has resulted in a cast-iron victory for the main party of Scottish independence.

Perhaps though, in pressing this case, we should be targeting the SNP leadership instead. Dilatory and glacial doesn’t even begin to describe their efforts at securing independence. You knew as soon as Vladimir Putin began amassing his troops on the Ukrainian border that the prospect of Scottish independence would be receding a further year or two. And that once the crisis began to work itself out, another one would be commandeered somewhere to dampen any expectations of independence.

Like the global pandemic, the Ukrainian crisis has the potential to stretch out across many years. No-one will be able to say for certain that the conflict has ended until Putin is cast out of office. And, as the recent increase in infection rates has shown, Covid-19 will also be with us for a while.

Many of those who oppose Scottish independence to a greater or lesser degree claim that the country is just too wee and too feeble to make independence work.

What about the economy? What about defence? What about the pensions and the currency? For a decade or so now, an assortment of strategists and economists in the wider Yes movement have been grappling with these and offering answers. The Common Weal think tank has done little else for the past eight years. Right across the political spectrum, there’s been enough work done at least to make a sturdy case for self-determination in all of these areas. Even the annual GERS festival of Unionism has become a more subdued affair in recent years, as it’s gradually become accepted that the bald numbers are a mere momentary snapshot of assumed finances in a political dominion heavily influenced by the spending priorities of an extreme right-wing government.

Unfortunately, it seems that very little work has been done on the independence offering by the party whose main task it is to make it happen. Every few months or so, we get patronised by an entire lexicon of words and phrases indicating enthusiasm for a second referendum. After a while all the pledges and promises, all the full-steam-aheads for indy, the vows and the time-frames blur into a soft-focus fantasy; Michelle McManus singing “there’ll be blue skies over the white cliffs of Duntocher”.

With each new empty and patronising promise, you begin to wonder if the professional SNP also think Scotland is too wee and too feeble to run its own affairs. So long as this gilded twilight exists, they’re all secure in their gold-plated pensions; their second homes; their lunchtime celebrity-hood and those big academic and lobbying positions that await them when they can’t be arsed pretending any more.

While the rest of us thought we were actually part of a movement towards independence, it’s become increasingly obvious that for the SNP’s managerial class, independence has become a business sector. Your first thought on hearing Ian Blackford claim that he was too focused on Ukraine to be talking about independence was “what took you so long, Ian?”

The hard-pressed Ukrainians must have breathed an almighty sigh of relief when they saw the news on their social media accounts. “Look, lads, the SNP have postponed their referendum again. Hurrah. Once more unto the breach we go.”

What is it you intend to do about Ukraine that will make any difference, Ian? I’m actually intrigued by this. Are we stopping whisky exports to Russia, or something? Will you be organising a weekly doorstep clap for Ukraine?

Any minute now we’ll be getting Pete Wishart wrapped in a big blue and yellow flag saying: “Runrig are playing a fundraising concert in Kyiv later in the year.” Which might actually be the final straw for discerning Ukrainians. Except we already know that Pete will want to hang around Westminster long enough for the black robes of the Commons speakership.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid excuse for delaying the referendum asked us to accept that Scotland had bigger stuff to be getting on with. Yet, for seven years between 1939 and 1945, Scots and the rest of the UK managed to keep the lights on, increase productivity and maintain good order despite the herculean effort of resisting the largest military threat the country had ever faced.

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A referendum in the modern age is a mere matter of several months of polite engagement and a single day recording the votes of the populace. It is not an onerous, life-changing task, First Minister.

If by some happy circumstance the Ukrainian crisis begins soon to recede, followed by the defeat of Covid, you wonder what fresh hell the SNP leadership will find to delay the second referendum. My money will be on the increased cost of living and the fuel price hikes caused by the Ukrainian crisis.

We’re never more than a few years away from some fresh trouble in the Middle East. And are we not due another bout of that Dutch Elm disease? Oh look: there’s been an outbreak of Covid-20 in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the independence gravy train keeps chugging along. And isn’t it just brilliant that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and her successors will remain as heads of state in an independent Scotland? Makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it.