SO now, it seems, the independence movement must move on from the Salmond inquiry; heal the divisions and work together for the greater good of self-determination. If only it were so simple.

A curious narrative has begun to emerge after the Hamilton Report concluded Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t broken the Ministerial Code. The many in the wider Yes family who have felt alienated and excluded by the controlling obsession of the SNP leadership must now simply bury their deep-rooted concerns because “the future of independence depends on it”.

One of the most significant of these concerns is that the party leadership itself isn’t very serious about achieving independence any time soon. This, though, seems to have escaped the glove-puppets and shills who gathered on social media on Monday night to offer thanks for the First Minister’s deliverance and to mock her opponents both real and imagined. Most seemed not to have read the Hamilton report.

If they had, they’d have encountered something unique in the esoteric world of important public investigations: the occasion of a review’s author admitting to doubts about what the public might conclude from it after all the redactions had been inserted. It was like reading a football match report, discovering that the scoreline was 4-2 but being left to guess in whose favour, and who scored the goals and when they were scored.

Nicola Sturgeon had forgotten about a meeting with one of the party’s most influential operatives and, according to several independent witnesses, the name of a complainant had been shared by someone in her own camp. Details of the police investigation had been illegally leaked to the Daily Record and a huge quantum of public money had been wasted pursuing a process the best lawyers in the land told her was doomed. The process itself was characterised by gross incompetence, negligence and – how can I put this – a laissez-faire attitude to the actualite.

But hey, it was a victory. Onwards to a majority in May’s elections; the First Minister had been “vindicated”. If this is what Holyrood has come to be regarded as a “vindication” it would suggest that in the future anything short of being caught on CCTV raiding the premises in mask, stripy jumper and a sack marked SWAG will stand a decent chance of acquittal.

READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: Given the outcome in Holyrood, is the shoe now on the other foot?

The day had also offered us another draft referendum bill, to go with all the others we’ve had. So familiar are we with the terminology of these bills now that they’ll soon

be getting recited word-perfect at Burns gatherings.

Of course, a “healing” of the Yes movement is required. For that to happen, though, it would help if the First Minister’s acolytes perhaps ceased referring to her critics as reactionary, transphobic, misogynistic traitors who spend too much time on Wings Over Scotland.

Especially when almost all of the evidence points to misogyny running through Sturgeon’s core base. There are two types of behavioural abuse in the SNP: those committed by party loyalists and which result in concealment and those perpetrated by “others” and which are thus deemed worthy of instant exile.

It’s now become clear that the biggest threat to a Yes majority comes not from anything that Labour or the Tories might do but how the SNP leadership chooses to proceed and conduct itself. There has to be an acknowledgment that the conduct of the party was utterly shameful throughout the entire process of the Salmond inquiry. It spoke of a dysfunctional apparatus that was defensive, obstructive and stretched the outer limits of what could reasonably be regarded as honesty and transparency.

Recent opinion polls point to a significant tightening of the margins where the crucial Holyrood majority is to be found. Less than a rogue handful of seats could bury independence for an entire generation. Yet, it would seem that those most inclined to withhold their vote from the SNP are to be found in the anti-Sturgeon camp … and with good reason.

THOSE media commentators who seem not to know the location of the boundary when objective journalism ends and unpaid party activism begins have been busy these last 48 hours appealing for “unity” at any cost. I’d advise them to deploy whatever clout they boast of with the First Minister in their west end and Strathbungo salons to advise her to cease with the sanctimony and piety; admit her shortcomings and failures and listen to real concerns.

And if she’s serious about “healing the divisions” she should run a mile from any proposed arrangement with the Scottish Greens. This would be utterly ruinous and serve to alienate her opponents further still. Apart from the abuse of gender-critical feminists that seems obligatory in this party they have a historic revulsion to Catholic schools that risks alienating Scotland’s largest pro-independence faith group.

I still have profound reservations about just how serious the leadership and its drones (especially at Westminster) is about independence. If they were serious about this then why did they plot against Joanna Cherry before taking her down in the most underhand and callous manner?

She is the only SNP politician who knows what needs to be done in using the courts as a means of delivering a Plan B, or at least pressurising Boris Johnson to come to the negotiating table. Was Cherry simply too successful? Did her ability and intellect make Nicola Sturgeon feel threatened?

The virtual guarantee of 40 or more SNP seats at Westminster has opened up an entire career path for a raft of party scufflers who now eye opportunities to fill their boots for a few years. The most hypocritical of them are so comfortable in the surroundings of the institution the party is committed to leaving that they want to play with its ceremonial toys and dress up in its fancy dress costumes. No wonder so many of them get a bit edgy when there’s talk of doing something drastic … like making a referendum actually happen.

​READ MORE: Wee Ginger Dug: There's a reason Tories don't advertise any policy but SNPBad

It’s not difficult in these circumstances to be conversant in the familiar lexicon of independence rhetoric … just not too much, you understand.

When you know that the status quo is beneficial to your bank balance and that your future employment prospects in the private sector, where a bulging contacts book can open up a route to a tidy non-exec, it’s all quite beguiling.

If the SNP are serious about a healing process then it must come from the party leadership. Those who have been paying their membership fees for many years before the carpet baggers became alive to the career possibilities of the independence sector have little to prove.