OUTSIDE Holyrood last Wednesday evening, the sense of renewed optimism among Scottish independence supporters was almost physical. I’d last encountered something like this in the months leading up to the first independence referendum in 2014 and at a couple of SNP annual conferences in the two years that followed it.

No one I spoke with in Edinburgh last week had seriously entertained the notion that the Supreme Court might grant Holyrood leave to hold a second referendum with or without the endorsement of the UK Government. But to actually witness a British Law Lord summarily dismiss the sovereignty of the Scottish Parliament by saying that it required the permission of Westminster to secede from a union of equal partners seemed to act as a lightning rod for a renewed sense of vigour.

Several among those with whom I spoke felt that Nicola Sturgeon had “played a blinder”. Their point was obvious: the First Minister would have gamed this outcome and divined too that the optics of the moment would fire up independence supporters.

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Yet, describing her tactics as “playing a blinder” also assumes that Sturgeon and her chief strategists had a ready-made plan of action ready to be triggered with immediate effect. Instead, there was something vague and half-arsed about consulting the party’s National Executive Committee prior to holding a special conference “sometime in the new year” about the next steps.

That sound you can hear is a very care-worn ball emerging once more and being kicked yet again into the long grass. Consultation; yet another conference; a consultation paper; perhaps even a steering group and maybe Mike Russell’s old independence breid van.

Some of us had assumed that, knowing which way the Supreme Court would swing, there might be detailed research and an authoritative legal argument for the competency of making the next UK election a de facto referendum. Simply stating that 50% plus one will now be the stated aim was never going to cut it.

Others might have felt too that a measure of diplomacy ought to have been conducted with those European states whose backing we’d require to endorse the result of a de facto referendum. Instead, the party’s de facto Nato twins (Stewart McDonald and Alyn Smith) have pursued a de facto foreign policy which is largely based on being Ukraine’s de facto representatives in the UK. All very commendable, I’m sure, but not exactly what the people who voted for them had in mind when they were doing so.

Indeed, you might even have assumed that there had been some informal, back-door diplomacy with the UK Government to facilitate an entente of sorts and the basis, perhaps, to discuss these issues via trusted back channels. That’s the way that grown-up politics works and it usually produces results. The Cold War would have become a rather Hot War if these informal, diplomatic pathways hadn’t existed.

Similarly, Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement wouldn’t have been reached were it not for years of unofficial, back-door diplomacy. This included the occasional intervention of neutral and respected American intermediaries to maintain conversations during the bleakest days.

In pursuing such a strategy, though, you need a degree of trust, actual human contact and some representatives that the other side admires and respects. Sadly, those SNP MPs most admired by the other parties have been replaced by a confederate of leadership shills who have neither the wit nor the acumen to build bridges or even advocate for independence in an artful or clever way.

The sense of hope that was apparent last week began to evaporate within a few days as it became clear that there was no real plan and that, if there had been, it was being kept within a very small group of people.

And then the hounding started. Yet again. Anyone daring to ask these questions or to criticise the SNP leadership was dismissed as an Alba supporter or a Red Tory. It was infantile and wretched fare and sadly characteristic of the tactics deployed by a guileless and deeply unpleasant cadre of Sturgeon loyalists within the party who rely solely on her personal support to maintain their places on the lists or in their promoted posts.

In the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court decision, a series of unfortunate events have conspired to puncture the first rush of optimism last week. It was surely unwise of Nicola Sturgeon to be the keynote speaker at an event organised to mark 30 years of campaigning about violence against women which urged attendees not to discuss the gender bill proceeding through Holyrood amid evidenced fears that it will endanger women’s welfare.

Nor did it help that the First Minister once more chose to gaslight many wavering independence supporters by accusing them of being transphobic simply for raising reasonable questions about her proposed gender legislation.

And it didn’t help that an extremely high-profile, and publicity-seeking Glasgow councillor was ejected from a meeting by Annemarie Ward, the country’s leading anti-addiction campaigner (and an independence supporter) amid claims, attested to by several people, that he threatened to use his contacts to cut off her funding.

There are many reasonable grounds for criticising the SNP party leadership for its failure to move the dial on independence since Sturgeon took charge seven years ago. During this time – long before Covid-19 – two senior SNP politicians, Angus MacNeil and Chris McEleny, sought to discuss the plan which the NEC will now consider “early next year”. McEleny was jeered for suggesting this by a number of party placemen who’d been given seats in the front two rows for that very purpose. It’s also reasonable to ask why the absurd “both votes SNP” was allowed to proceed in last year’s Scottish election, thus damaging the prospects of a solid pro-independence majority at Holyrood. And how do you square the favoured currency position and the lack of a central bank with your aim of getting back into Europe? And how does not having fiscal autonomy from the Union you want to leave tally with being independent?

Why has a rushed and patched-up Care Strategy been favoured at the expense of a much clearer, detailed and visionary Care Service plan produced by the Common Weal think tank? The answer, of course, is that independence seems to matter much less to Sturgeon and her anointed glove-puppets than ensuring that “the wrong type” don’t get to contribute.

There are very reasonable questions being asked by very reasonable and seasoned independence campaigners. But with each adolescent insult, each arrogant misstep by the party leadership and its most supine acolytes, they are being marginalised at a time when their support and opinions are most needed.