LOOKING ahead to the new year and the most important debate the independence movement has faced, it’s essential that this debate is full and frank and is not dominated by loud fringe voices selling easy solutions to complex problems.

The cause of independence is a noble and just one but winning independence takes work. Nothing that is worth it is ever easy. The debate of “what now?” will have much to discuss, what constitutes a win, votes or seats? Is a win a mandate for independence? Or a mandate for another referendum?

If we are going down the 50% +1 vote, it has to be a mandate for full independence, not just another referendum.

At the last SNP conference, party members voted for a civic campaign organisation with a code of conduct at its heart and that civic movement is needed more than ever. The coming debate will see that civic movement become a reality.

Some loud voices which constantly call for the movement and the Scottish Government to take the most wrong-headed strategy possible are again doing what they always do – calling for us to take the most self-defeating strategy possible. Let’s be frank – collapsing Holyrood to force an election is the most stupid idea since their last most stupid idea.

If we were trying to think up a strategy that would kill independence, this would be it.

So let’s look at the realities of what some are painting as a simplistic solution to a complex issue.

The first thing is that independence is polling at just over 50%, and a good percentage of that 50% will be soft Yessers.

The chaos we have seen at Westminster has been a primary driver in support for independence. The idea that the Union offers stability has been blown apart.

I can only assume that those who call for the collapse of Holyrood to force an election deny the reality of polling and think that everyone must be as staunch as they are.

I hate to break it to them, but most people are not staunch. They will vote for what they think offers their family a better future.

Escaping Westminster instability is what is driving more people towards independence, so where is the sense in a strategy of the First Minster resigning, and three months of the opposition trying to form a government while the SNP and Greens block these attempts, and then an election period.

All this while we are in a cost of living crisis, chaos and no government while our people are struggling.

How do you think the public would react to this self-indulgent game-playing? Independence would be linked to chaos, just like Westminster.

The press will never be our friend, but this action would see us under a media attack like never before. Heaping chaos on chaos is no strategy.

We have to question why some are pushing this. Is it political stupidity or something way more sinister?

Let’s have the debate on the way ahead, but let’s have that debate grounded in electoral reality and not a fantasy strategy invented in a harmful indy bubble.

Independence is a serious business, and it will happen. It will happen because of the work of our Scottish Government offering long-term stability and the work of a serious democratic movement putting in the hard graft to convince the Scottish public that independence provides a better political framework as we move forward.