A WEEK is a long time in politics right enough. Where last week I was able to congratulate without knowing who our new SNP Westminster group leader is, this week I can congratulate Stephen Flynn on his new role. In the best way (and I know he’ll appreciate this) I wish him as short a tenure as possible.

Same as all of us SNP MPs at Westminster, we all want to work ourselves out of the place by building the case for independence in Europe and coming home to build a better nation in real-time.

To boot, I’ve been reshuffled, for the first time in 18 years in politics! I am now delighted to have an expanded role as the Europe and EU Accession Spokesperson for the group. Where I’ve enjoyed the foreign affairs brief, there’s a lot of it, a lot of time in London and in the Chamber covering things, which I’ve done gladly and thoroughly enjoyed.

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At barely an hour or so’s notice, you can be pulled into an urgent question or statement on anything happening anywhere in the world and not only do you have to string an intelligent sentence together you need to hold the UK Government to account and promote independence.

That I’ve not made us look stupid over the course of the last three years is something I’m quite amazed by, and would thank the team at Westminster: Roddy, Paul, Clorinda, Katie and the other staffers we have advising us for their hard work.

But as regular readers of this column know, where Scotland in the world is close to my heart, independence in Europe is what we need to achieve to make it happen. All else, ultimately, is secondary.

My role now will be twofold. Firstly, to try post-Brexit to remedy the mistakes the UK Government is making, caused ultimately by them pretending that the EU is somehow foreign policy.

The National: An anti-Northern Ireland Protocol sign near Larne Port

It is not – the EU is domestic policy in a different place. The Northern Ireland Protocol is not a Northern Ireland thing, it is an EU thing. The EU Retained Law Bill is not solely the domain of the UK Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department, it is a reminder of why the EU’s regulatory regime leads the world.

Post-Brexit trading arrangements are not a Department for International Trade allocation, they’re a reminder of the loss of the EU market. The Levelling Up Agenda is not a Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities fever dream, it is an EU thing, and we are guddling around for 12p in the pound compared to the EU funding we have lost.

The Turing Scheme is not just an Education Department idea; it is an EU matter and a cruel deception compared to the genuinely progressive Erasmus programme snatched away from future generations in an act of vandalism.

So, my role across the group will be to coordinate our presentation and our support of how we attack all these areas, and more, hopefully bringing a coherence that they are not disparate subjects where the UK Government sets the agenda, they’re all poor consequences of leaving the EU, which we’ll remedy with independence in Europe.

Secondly, I’ll be working to support colleagues in Edinburgh with building and promoting the case for independence and working on the accession process. We’re clear about what our objective is, we’re not just there to comment on what the UK Government is doing, we’re there to prepare for what we think is in Scotland’s best interests.

That will involve international outreach across the EU, EEA and EFTA states, and more time back in Brussels.

So, I feel positive about the role and positive about where the party and Yes movement is right now. The polls are encouraging, the UK Government floundering from one culture war to another as that is all they have, and Labour is emulating them rather than offering anything different. The SNP and independence in Europe are, I believe, looking better and better.