IT was a difficult time.

After years campaigning to win their own independence, the folk on Eigg hit an apparently insurmountable stumbling block in 1995. Keith Schellenberg, problematic, absentee owner of the Hebridean island for 20 years, had finally decided to sell. But not to the community. Indeed, that would happen, he said, “over his dead body”.

Despite petitions, modest fundraising, public support and a determination by 65 islanders to somehow raise the necessary millions, Schellenberg had quietly sold the island to another absentee owner, the mysterious “fire artist” Professor Eckhard Maruma.

The brazen disrespect was breath-taking. The impact on hopeful campaigners hard to bear. The powerlessness even harder to thole.

Clearly it didn’t matter how the people of Eigg felt about being traded on the open market like a prize bull. It didn’t matter what alternatives they had painstakingly created. Might was right. Ownership was nine-tenths of the law. Their campaign was grounded ... for a few months.

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During which there was lengthy discussion about the best way forward, including acceptance and working with the new owner. But that quickly fell away as the true nature of “Professor” Maruma was revealed.

Without rehashing the whole story, Maruma was exposed as a man who bought his title from an American university, found the cash to buy Eigg not from a unique painting style as he claimed but via loans from two creditors, one of which foreclosed on him in 1996.

Suddenly another opportunity – and another setback. The Eigeachs sought cash support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, but its £1 million grant came with strings attached. Namely that islanders would own just 49% of the island with nature charities and the council owning the rest.

The islanders walked away – encouraged by Assynt Crofter Allan Macrae that they should never accept second best or partial rights over their land and should always “go for gold”.

By May 1997, the NHMF let-down didn’t matter. Members of the public had come to the rescue, along with a six-figure contribution by one anonymous donor. The islanders finally bought Eigg and 25 years later, their custodianship is counted a massive success in every conceivable way.

What kept them going in the face of obstruction, dead-ends and high-handed intransigence?

Inclusion and incredible internal cohesion. They talked a lot. Being on a small island with one shop, they met a lot.

Trust board members divvied the island into beats and after meetings, went go out to visit those who didn’t attend, so no-one could complain about being left out.

As human ecologist and Isle of Eigg Trust founder Alastair McIntosh put it, “the people of Eigg made the island “unlairdable”. That didn’t mean a lot of direct action – unless you include using the estate tractor to deliver drums of diesel to freezing elderly tenants against instructions. It did mean running Eigg as if the people were in charge – because actually, they always had been. You may see where I’m going with this.

There is currently gloom amongst independence supporters because the Supreme Court ruling has confirmed the puny subordinate status of the Scottish Parliament. It hurts, even though that sorry reality is precisely what motivates Yessers to want better. And it induces weariness since an easy, speedy indyref2 looks less and less likely.

Meanwhile, there’s doubt about the wisdom of fighting the next General Election as a de facto independence referendum with the next Holyrood election looking like a better (though more distant) option since it would widen the franchise and guarantee media coverage of the independence stance.

SOME folk, including Angus Brendan MacNeil MP, want a Holyrood election sooner than 2026, urging Nicola Sturgeon to essentially collapse the current Scottish Government and trigger an early Scottish vote.

There are difficulties with this option, not least appearing to play Stormont-style games over the constitution – which is how the Unionist press would doubtless style the move.

But clearly every other option is also fraught with difficulty as fellow columnists Gerry Hassan and George Kerevan have already outlined – and that includes forging ahead with fingers crossed.

So, what to do? Which path to advocate? Will the views of anyone – even SNP branches – carry any weight when the First Minister decides our path?

And is there any real parallel with that moment 25 years ago when a historic community buyout also seemed to have run aground?

Of course, the buyout effort for an island is very different to the independence campaign for a country. And doubtless some will take exception to the analogy since Eigg’s difficulties and triumph all happened before the devolved Scottish Parliament was reconvened.

That’s not my point. Faced with a brick wall at least twice, the Eigeachs did what Yessers are not doing.

They got organised. They talked through their options. They included everyone. They reached out and met their own, unfair democratic deficit with more democracy. Above all, they established common cause with one another. Unshakeable friendships were created between people who were not two peas in a pod by political conviction or temperament.

Now I’ll grant you. It’s easier to create solidarity amongst 65 islanders faced with imminent evictions – than it is to unite the disparate Yes movement.

And yet, that’s what we must do.

I’M not talking here about the SNP, Greens and Alba burying their respective hatchets, even though Alba’s Neale Hanvey on stage after the SNP’s Tommy Sheppardon Wednesday night was a welcome sight.

Waving olive branches would be the most constructive thing ANY of the Yes parties could do in 2023.

But I’m not holding my breath.

I’m talking instead about us.

As last week’s rallies demonstrated, the Yes movement doesn’t need to wait for the SNP to take the initiative. So, we need a meeting to put our own house in order, consider the constitutional options and devise a strategy that has the collective weight of the entire movement behind it. Will that be difficult? You’re telling me.

The Yes movement has sprouted arms, legs, branches and whole new groups since the last get together at Wiston Lodge in 2014.

Some groups have their own strategies, crowd-funded resources and manifestos – others exist only as under-active Facebook groups.

We’re all more used to using zoom than meeting in-person, life is hard, the days are short and dark and activists are knackered.

It’ll be hard to come together. Agreed. But as George Kerevan has argued, we must try. And we must try to work differently when we do.

Yes now has a breathing space, options, momentum, international profile and an enduring capacity to do things differently.

So, let’s take a bit of time and get folk from the bigger Yes groups meeting together for a whole weekend.

We may not come up with a single plan. That may be pie in the sky.

But it could be just the impetus we all need.

Not to take the strategic decision that falls to the First Minister – but to ensure alternative paths are explored and other voices are heard. The more Yes groups can get behind one option, the more likely that it will carry some weight.

Why does that matter? Running democratic campaigns by diktat is the British way. Responding to such exclusion by knocking lumps out of one another – ditto. Charging with hope (but without the right kit) is the auld Scottish way.

Now, there’s nothing else for it. We must learn to work together.

And Yes can get the ball rolling right now.