I WISH I had kept a note of the actual day on which I joined the SNP. It was sometime in the spring of 1974 but exactly where and how I did the thing that has to a great extent shaped my life I cannot recall.

Anyway, I have had at least 47 years in the party and the difference between then and now in politics, as in most things, is remarkable.

Yet I didn’t come this far just to come this far.

I won’t rest until we have achieved independence and I am as strongly of the belief today as I was in 1974 that the SNP remain the only political vehicle capable of delivering it.

It has been said that two world wars and the establishment of the NHS were events which slowed – but did not stop – the gradual distancing of Scotland from the Union that started in the last decades of the 19th century.

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The pandemic has been and remains an event which has further delayed the opportunity for Scotland to finally choose its national future. That is simply a fact and there is no doubt from the campaign experience of the last few months that most Scots support such a ranking of priorities.

The imperative of defeating the virus will remain the Scottish Government’s core task for some time yet, so it is inevitable that the building of the case for independence will need to be undertaken by the wider Yes movement.

Providing the arguments which will encourage our fellow citizens to grasp the opportunity to, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, “establish good government from reflection and choice” will require a united movement. Yet at present it is not just fractured but also fractious.

Earlier this week, I tweeted a criticism of Stephen Kerr, the brash, right-wing rent-a quote-Tory MSP who was decisively turfed out as the MP for Stirling in December 2019 but who has been politically resurrected as an MSP by dint of Holyrood’s regional list system.

In the few weeks since his return, Mr Kerr has delighted his small band of extremist followers with such brave actions as deleting the Gaelic heading from his Scottish Parliament notepaper and asking Dominic Raab to tell Nicola Sturgeon to stop talking to foreigners.

The thing I criticised was his insulting Twitter reference to Professor Devi Sridhar (below), the respected chair of global health at the world-renowned Edinburgh University Medical School, as a “mouthpiece for (the SNP’s) political spin”.

The National:

Most people agreed with me but there was a backlash from an unlikely source – prominent Yes supporters in the Alba Party who attacked my “faux outrage” (as one put it) and put the blame for Mr Kerr’s election firmly at my door because I had argued for “both votes SNP”.

They believe a “supermajority” for independence could have been created if the SNP had endorsed Alba on the regional ballot. That would, in their view, have slashed the number of Unionist MSPs – people like Mr Kerr – and created an irresistible independence dynamic.

I continue to disagree. Not only does this thesis over-simplify how people now vote (for example the actual results would indicate that the SNP/Green first and second ballot choice is of significance both ways and underlines the wisdom of seeking a closer working relationship), misrepresent what a supermajority is and isn’t, and undermine the essential integrity of our proportional representation system (which is under attack from the Tories as well), it also ignores profound differences over some significant policy issues.

In addition, and it is best to be honest about this, it fails to acknowledge the elephant in the room, which is the bitter baseless campaign of personal vilification and destructive innuendo that is still being pursued against some in the SNP leadership and staff.

As party president, I freely admit the SNP has several internal issues to address (though there is, as Nicola Sturgeon correctly pointed out this week, absolutely no “missing money”) but it is also fair to point out that constant leaking and malicious misrepresentation of party activity and decisions has made openness difficult.

For many of us, there has also been much distress and disruption in finding people we regarded not just as colleagues but often as friends now willingly believing and repeating every calumny and conspiracy theory that discredits good hard-working nationalists in the SNP.

So let me be blunt. If we are to secure a united Yes movement (and we must in order to secure a referendum and then independence) then two things are essential.

The first is a recognition of differences but a determination to find a way to work together despite them. That does not mean agreeing on everything, but it does mean ceasing the constant rehearsal of past grievance and continuing personal dislikes.

The second is a recognition of things as they are. That does not mean acceptance, but it does mean acknowledging we are not yet living in a country that is fully convinced it needs independence and thus neither the constraints of the devolution settlement nor the views of Unionists can just be ignored or bulldozed out of the way.

That is why we shouldn’t cheat the voting system, but have to accept its outcome and work to convince those who are not yet with us.

It is also why we should never believe that all Tories are as crass as Stephen Kerr or that all senior SNP members are automatons instructed what to do by a leadership that has abandoned the very cause they have actually given their lives to.

I don’t want to get to 50 years in the SNP and still be travelling hopefully. I want to arrive at independence.

To do so we will all need to show honesty, generosity, tolerance, and a willingness to work with anyone who is prepared to do the same.

I am still on for that. I hope every other nationalist is too.