SOME readers may be familiar with the phrase, “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten”, from the Book of Joel.

In the midst of despair and desolation, when all looks lost and hopeless, there is a promise that changing tack – turning around and doing things differently – will result in better things to come.

The Scottish independence movement, to a casual observer, looks lost and hopeless right now. The SNP are in the midst of a leadership election in which some deep divisions over the nature and purposes of the party, which have been skilfully papered over for the last decade and a half, are coming to light.

Superficially, this has been presented as a division over social and cultural policy. Are the SNP a socially progressive party that seek to use the power of the state to bring about a cultural revolution against traditional gender norms and family values? Or are they a socially ­liberal party that recognise the right of ­people to be ­faithful to their own beliefs and values, in a free, open, tolerant, pluralist society?

There is also some division over economic priorities – do we want to grow, develop and strengthen our economy, to provide the more robust tax base on which to build high ­quality public services? Or are we more concerned about zero waste?

These divisions are neither new nor ­surprising. The SNP have, throughout their history, been a ­big-tent party, holding left, right and ­centre ­together, around the common cause of Scottish independence. With forbearance and understanding, we should all be able to get along well enough, despite these differences, so long as we keep that common cause in sight.

Yet it is upon that supposedly common cause that the real differences within the party have emerged. Eight years on from the 2014 ­independence referendum, we are no closer to the goal. With false start after false start, the carrot of independence has been dangled in front of us, and yet – well, here are, still stuck in this blasted Union.

The question the SNP must ask themselves is this: Are the SNP still an independence party that ­exist, above all else, to bring about ­independence? Or are they a Scottish interest ­party, seeking to protect the interests of the ­Scottish people – outside the UK if possible, but inside it if necessary?

For as long as independence felt like an ­imminent prospect, there was very little ­practical tension between these two objectives. But the game has changed. In 2014, we had an open door, and all they had to do was to give people enough confidence about what lay on the other side to induce them to walk through it.

Now we face a door that is locked and barred. We are being told by the United Kingdom ­Government, “You’ll have had your ­referendum”. We must bang on that door so hard that the British Government has no choice but to fling it open, for fear that otherwise we will ding it down.

If we were honest, we would admit that we do not yet have that door-bursting support. Support for independence has not substantially shifted. It is still hovering between about 45% and 50%. This is despite Brexit, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the cost of living crisis, and all that has been ­revealed about the systemically corrupt, amoral and dysfunctional nature of the British state.

Let us not lose sight of the good work that Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Government and the SNP have done. I know there has been some solid progress on constitution-building, albeit mostly behind the scenes.

If we start casting the blame for the lack of progress over the last eight years, we will tear the movement apart. Instead, we should take the longer view.

In 1927, James Barr – Labour member for Motherwell and president of the Scottish Home Rule Association – introduced a Home Rule Bill which would have given ­Scotland full home rule over everything but foreign affairs and defence. There would be no Scottish MPs at Westminster, and Westminster would not be able to directly tax Scotland.

Barr’s bill was voted down. But the fact that was radical even by today’s standards, offering far more than any recent “devo max” proposal, is revealing. For a century, progress has been glacial.

That must change. Stagnation and inertia must go. Time is running out. Patience will not last forever.

To restore the years the locusts have eaten, the new SNP leader needs a coherent four-fold ­strategy for independence:

(a) a strategy to ­convince Scotland to want independence;

(b) a strategy to make the United Kingdom ­Government let us have independence;

(c) a strategy to convince the rest of Europe, Nato and our allies to welcome independence

(d) a strategy to build independence – that is, to lay the constitutional foundations of the new Scottish state.

Dr Daniela Nadj is our guest on the TNT Show Join us at 7pm on Wednesday