Unionist elite is deluded and has now written Scotland off – good!

I suspect Sturgeon’s leaving has more to do with personal burnout than a reaction to any one of the mounting catalogue of problems faced by the SNP government after its record 16 years in office. Had she stayed, Sturgeon would also have had to deal with a fractured party, yet another gruelling General Election campaign and no immediate prospect of a second referendum. No wonder she decided to quit while she still had her sanity.

But this Monday morning I am more concerned with the future, not the comparatively trivial question of which particular personality succeeds Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader and First Minister. As a rule, I think a political system that still emphasises single leaders and charismatic personalities above collective responsibility and rational debate is bound to fail time after time. Besides, the pool of talent from which the next FM will be drawn is hardly inspiring.

No, my concern is to use Sturgeon’s departure from the big stage, and the leadership debate that is about to unfold, to reset the agenda and timetable for gaining independence. And to re-invigorate and reunite a somewhat jaded, deeply perplexed and increasingly factious independence movement.

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I don’t think any particular personality can achieve this.

Which is not to say the different contenders for Sturgeon’s vacant crown do not have merits and demerits. But unless we have a new strategy and direction we can all agree on, it does not matter who gets crowned on March 27.

For starters, let us take heart in the confusion of Scotland’s political foes. Media pundits after internet sages have risen as one voice to tell themselves – does anyone else listen? – that the FM's departure represents the end for Scottish independence.

That now the witch (or whatever vile epithet they prefer) has gone, Unionist sanity will return to the deluded Jocks. That they will now fall meekly into line and accept what London and Westminster tell them is their due. Back to political business as usual, north of the Border.

This outpouring of collective stupidity on the part of the UK Unionist elite – from liberal left to populist right – plays to our advantage. The UK is a failed state. The post-Brexit British economy is stalled, with productivity in the toilet and foreign investors such as AstraZeneca heading for Ireland (and the single market) rather than the UK.

Our monarchical semi-democracy is incapable of taking long-term decisions, or fixing the NHS, or alleviating poverty. Yet the Brit left and the Brit right are convinced “our precious Union” is here to stay.

More fool them.

When your enemies are digging a deeper hole for themselves, give them a bigger spade. The Unionist political elite is deluded and has now written Scotland off. Good!

That gives the indy movement the advantage of surprise. But only if we can unite and take the initiative. Sturgeon’s strategy of relying on the courts effectively ceded that political initiative to the Unionist camp, whatever her intentions to the contrary. Our movement now has to regain momentum.

I put it this way because I think the independence movement now faces a crossroads, regardless of who replaces Nicola Sturgeon.

A national movement for self-determination is not and cannot be confined to a single political party. A national movement is a glorious mixture of cultural insurgency, youth awakening, institutional reform, mass involvement, personal sacrifice and intense agitation.

Such a movement for national renewal need not be violent – violence usually ends in a divided nation at the onset of independence. But equally, a successful national movement is a more of a multi-faceted, culturally-diverse crusade than it is a traditional, narrow political party.

THE current weakness of the movement in Scotland is that it has become too confined by the SNP, and particularly by the current SNP leadership.

I don’t mean this in the sense of a deliberate conspiracy, though the Sturgeon-Murrell domination over the SNP apparatus led to the leadership faction feeling it was above simple party democratic and financial norms.

My criticism is more that, after 16 years in government at Holyrood, the SNP have – perforce – become more of a machine for retaining power and patronage than it is a national insurgency.

Perhaps that drift into institutionalisation was inevitable, the longer independence was delayed. But we have now reached a crisis point where the travails of the SNP-Green government are sometimes at odds with the needs of the greater movement. This points to the need – as in Catalonia, for instance – for the mass movement to have a greater degree of autonomy from the SNP as a party of government.

And that, in turn, is only possible if the new SNP leadership team is willing to countenance it. I am hoping current SNP members will be willing to raise this issue at the coming leadership hustings.

A few years ago, I was involved in the launch of Now Scotland, a prototype umbrella body for the whole indy movement, one that would gently separate Holyrood government from mass democracy.

Unfortunately, while gaining around 10,000 supporters and despite sterling work by its initiators, Now Scotland failed to achieve its potential. This was due to a variety of causes: the interruption of the pandemic; the first hints of divisions within the SNP itself; plus a general demobilisation of the movement as the SNP leadership concentrated more on a legal strategy to effect a second referendum, Regardless, the Now Scotland project did not succeed. But today, with Sturgeon gone and her court-oriented strategy a failure, we need a united, re-energised indy movement more than ever.

One obvious way forward is to put aside (for now) the idea of a mass membership organisation on the lines of the Catalan National Assembly and instead convene a new, one-off Scottish National Convention. This convention would allow the various elements, groups and parties that make up the indy family to meet on neutral ground to debate strategy and tactics.

Almost by definition, the deliberations of such a gathering could not be binding on its participants. But the very act of common discussion would get us beyond the present political stasis.

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Above all, a common gathering would re-animate and invigorate the movement. And it would give the new SNP leadership team a ready platform to get to know the movement.

Taking steps towards re-uniting, re-energising and re-democratising the mass movement must be put at the heart of the SNP leadership debates. Candidates need to be quizzed on what they will do not just with respect to the Westminster government but with regard to rebuilding organic links with the wider indy family.

Some candidates will prefer to see independence politics solely through the prism of the party itself. I understand this approach – I was an SNP member for 25 years.

And there are deep, deep ideological divisions inside the SNP and between the SNP and other parts of the movement.

But that should not stop us trying to achieve unity in action.