AND so, the hurly burly’s done, and the election lost, and won. Congratulations to my new party leader Humza Yousaf, he’ll have my active support. It was a strange old campaign and I didn’t envy the candidates the seven million hustings they had to do, or their attempts to get campaigns moving from a standing start.

It’s worth remembering too that behind every candidate, there’s a family and staff who will have felt it all as well. So now we do what the SNP have needed to do for a while – unite and focus on the needs of the people of Scotland.

Divided parties don’t win elections and a divided movement won’t deliver independence in Europe.

READ MORE: Kate Forbes rejects ministerial role in Humza Yousaf's government

This will be down to self-discipline from all of us and especially our new leader – a 52/48% vote needs a big tent to reunite in – but there were a lot of good ideas (and to be sure a few absolute stinkers) raised in the campaign. I hope that we’ll see in action the broad approach that Humza promised in his genuinely impressive victory speech. I take a few things away from the campaign.

Firstly, and closest to my heart, any debate about an independent Scotland’s journey back to the EU is now settled. There was a time when there was a significant element of the SNP was not pro-EU. That minority has diminished over time but is now clearly over.

The SNP are a pro-independence and pro-EU party – we want to be independent in order to join organisations, not be separate or apart in some sort of fantasy halfway house. This chimes with the overwhelming aspiration of the people of Scotland and will be crucial in winning former No voters over to Yes. Let’s no longer dilute the message with pipe dreams over EFTA and the like, and let’s stop giving credence to those peddling fantasy options we don’t need.

Those states in EFTA and the EEA are there for their own domestic reasons and good luck to them, but Scotland’s obvious and natural home is the EU, full stop.

Secondly, we still need a credible route map to independence, and we also need to win over those as yet unpersuaded both by the route map and the destination. That need has not gone away, but I was glad to hear both Humza and Kate talk much more about building the support for independence and less about the mechanics of the route map. I will be writing more about my own thoughts on the route map soon, but I was glad to see that throughout the campaign, pragmatism won over some more outlandish suggestions.

Thirdly, we need to focus on the priorities of the people of Scotland, not what they would see as fringe issues. I don’t think there is any need for much of a change to the party’s offering, but we can better focus our presentation and perception and I was glad to hear Humza say just this on Monday.

The issues the people of Scotland care about are the issues we as a party care about. We’ll win on the centre ground, as that’s where most people are. The UK has delivered poor life outcomes to too many people, and too many of our people are living day in day out with the consequences of engrained poverty.

However, while the UK is going in a direction that will make this worse (the recent Budget proves that), Scotland can grow our economy in a way that benefits us all, rich and poor.

READ MORE: Humza Yousaf's most difficult task will be keeping independence relevant

Fourthly, we need to find a better way of having our debate than through the amped-up algorithms of social media or the even more amped-up interpretations and selective presentations of the press. Some of the reports from hustings I watched myself were from a parallel universe. So I would request that if you’re an SNP member and have not been to a branch meeting lately, go on along. Let’s try to have more conversations in person because the greatest source of support and encouragement for other SNP members is us, other SNP members.

Finally, we have the ball at our feet. On the big questions alive in Scottish politics – growing the economy to tackle poverty, independence and EU membership – the Conservative UK government has delivered nothing but misery and the Labour Party, their only possible replacement, have been posted missing. Though I would far rather see a Labour UK government than a Tory one, that Labour government has nothing of substance to offer Scotland.

A new Labour government will tinker with the UK’s economic model where we need to change the game, will continue to deny Scotland’s right to choose and will not get us back into Europe.

They may well win in England because people want rid of the Tories, but they have no offering to the people of Scotland.

Election campaigns are always emotional rollercoasters, and perhaps the dust needs to settle a wee bit yet, but I think we will come out of this all the stronger for it.