I SENSE a wee bit of frustration growing. Some stalwarts of independence have been sitting with their foot on the accelerator since 2014 waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to turn the lights green. The Saltires and the Yes placards have never found their way to the loft. The window stickers and pop-up stalls have never been removed from their cars. The “always on” culture is thoroughly embedded in the independence movement.

This commitment, and enthusiasm, is commendable. In the absence of a date for indyref2, people have been keeping the engine revved up with meetings and marches – all focused on how we can make independence happen. They are ready to immediately switch on to campaign mode as soon as Nicola says the word.

But while we have been poised with our feet on the gas, great big juggernauts like Trump, Brexit and rising right-wing populism around the world are smashing the speed limit and racing off into the distance. For the first time in my life I have a sense of dread that we may be entering a pre-fascist era.

People relying on benefits and food banks are dying from poverty while privileged old Etonians shamelessly further their political ambitions by mocking and sneering at Muslim women going about their daily business, deliberately inciting racial hatred against one of our most under-attack communities. It’s a grotesque political culture we live in when someone like Mary Lockhart, with not a racist hair on her head, is suspended by the Labour party pending an investigation into alleged anti-Semitism while Boris Johnson wins adulation for his deliberate manipulation of frenzied and violent fascistic bullies such as the laughably named English Defence League.

There’s a lot going on outside the independence movement and we ignore that at our peril. Yet many of us have tunnel vision. We see independence as the light at the end of the tunnel and so we focus relentlessly on that. Everything else is a diversion from our mission.

Not everyone in the independence movement is fixated on one goal to the exclusion of all else – some women SNP politicians in particular do some sterling work building support for reforms that can make a real difference to the lives of people at the sharp end of society, right here and right now. Other activists, however, remind me of some of the folk I knew in socialist politics who reduced every problem to the battle between capitalism and socialism. In the words of a particularly dogmatic slogan “one solution – revolution”.

Now I think independence is an awful lot closer and easier to achieve than socialism but, as the left has discovered over and over again, people lead real lives that need real answers now. Which I suspect is why the SNP has concentrated on “getting on with the day job”. People are not easily persuaded that if only they came on board for independence, everything would be hunky dory.

These questions are at the heart of some of the differences of opinion amongst independence supporters about things like the All Under One Banner marches. Yes, grassroots initiatives pulling people together and keeping morale up are important. There was and is a real danger that activists, impatient because of the absence of a date for indyref2, could drift away completely. You cannot just turn a movement on and off like a tap. As Lesley Riddoch wrote in The National a few days ago – and as every cyclist knows – momentum is everything. Stop going forward and you end up lying injured on the roadside.

But those who express concern that flag-waving marches don’t persuade No voters to change sides also have a point. The message they send is that we’re in the club – and you’re outside. We need marches and rallies, but not to the exclusion of activity that will win over the don’t knows and the less-entrenched Unionists.

For me, building cohesion across Scotland beyond party lines to resist the rise of the right, to resist being dragged under with the Brexit ship, to resist the ideological orthodoxy of austerity should be integral to the independence movement. The independence movement should be at the heart of creating spaces and conversations that are not just all about independence. How do “we”, as in the whole of Scotland, deal with Brexit? Should we perhaps be leading the charge for a second referendum? How do we stop the Boris bandwagon? What do we do if Trump wins a second term? We cannot keep normal politics in a state of suspended animation.

Many of us will be familiar with some social media types who pounce on any differences that other independence supporters have with the SNP government with the refrain “let’s get independence first” – the implication being that any criticism of the SNP on policy will undermine independence. Some people, and it is just some, dismiss any negative statistics or policy outcomes as just #SNPbad propaganda.

On the face of it, the reputation and fortunes of the SNP, the biggest force for independence, are inherently tied to the fortunes of independence. But it’s not the whole picture. There are more people open to independence than will consider voting SNP.

Defending the SNP government on every single issue sends the message that independence equals SNP in perpetuity. That, whether we like it or not, is unpalatable to many.

And denying that there are problems in the NHS, or other public services, flies in the face of people’s everyday reality.

Yes, we can point to services in England being worse and the Westminster government still having control over all the key economic levers – but that does nothing to help people waiting for a psychiatric referral, or a home of their own, or the care and security they need.

For me, independence supporters need to be right in and about all the political issues facing us: initiating conversations with people that are not all about independence; being seen to be unafraid of political debate and diversity; being the people who organise events where there is a broad range of participants with much to contribute to the big issues facing Scotland and the world.

That’s why independence supporters in Birnam and Dunkeld in rural Perthshire have initiated an event that is doing just that next Saturday, August 18 at Birnam Arts Centre.

Titled Scotland ... Where Now?, it will be a mix of conversation and entertainment with Elaine C Smith and friends. Former Cosla leader Pat Watters – a lifelong Labour Party member – will be on the panel along with Mary Senior, a trade union activist, me, Elaine and local tireless SNP activist Alasdair Wylie. Drew Campbell, steeped in Green politics, will chair the discussion.

We will be trying to get away from seeing everything through the prism of Yes and No and hoping to build respect, trust and solidarity that will charge up our batteries and power us up to be able to confront the tumultuous times we live in. Scotland, whether independent or not, will not be hermetically sealed from the global rise of the right. We need all the bodies we can muster.