NO stranger to providing us with some peak entertainment, Scottish politics has really popped off this week.

A week ago, we had a successful, stable and world-recognised statesman sitting comfortably in Bute House with improving polls to boot. That same First Minister has now quit, the country’s political future is hanging in the balance and it seems all parties have, frankly, lost their minds.

Do I think Humza Yousaf made a good decision regarding the Bute House Agreement? No, I don’t.

If I’m honest, it baffled me, and it continues to do so. That being said, the instability posed by the Greens’ impending membership vote on the agreement was clearly the catalyst for it all – the First Minister was in a sticky position and risked looking politically weak if he hadn’t taken control of the narrative himself.

It is a real shame to be losing a politician of his calibre in this way. He’s not had it easy since he took office, but in my opinion, he rode the waves like a pro. Yousaf was dealt a hell of a deck, but powered through calmly, assuredly and with a deeply felt passion for his country.

In the way that a real leader should. His leadership on Palestine will forever be what defines him and who he is, despite it being personally and politically difficult for him, he has been unwavering in his support for the Palestinian people and has been recognised internationally for it. History will remember him kindly, and we should not get lost in the immediate noise that will inevitably fade out.

READ MORE: John Swinney to make statement on SNP leadership bid

His resignation speech on Monday was representative of the man we have seen over the last 13 months. Thoroughly kind, thoughtful and dedicated beyond measure to the country that he leads. He is by all accounts a decent and honest man, the kind that feels increasingly rare in politics, and we should be sad to see him go.

It is time though, and I say this as a party member myself, that we have an honest conversation as a movement.

The fact is that Nicola Sturgeon is gone – and she is not replaceable. The stonking back-to-back election wins and unshakeable public support once enjoyed by the party have inevitably taken a shift since her departure. Yousaf was always going to have a difficult job, and we should not be judging him too harshly in any reality.

We can keep trying to revive her political ghost by ushering in another member of her inner circle, or we can go back to the drawing board and provide a genuinely freshly updated perspective.

The party has been in chaos since her resignation, between police investigations and a never-endingly challenging political landscape – it’s time to stop pretending like everything is fine, that we have a complete handle on the situation, that we are going to recover.

The fact is, the only way we are going to recover is if we look outwards at the rest of the country and what it is crying out for. And that’s change. We are in seriously tough times, and we need radical, unapologetically progressive policy to help us out of them.

READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: SNP leadership race must be a genuine contest and not a coronation

That includes independence.

The last week has been utterly depressing to watch, especially as an avid defender of politics generally. We have seen nothing of any substance offered to the people of Scotland, instead the country has watched on as political infighting infiltrated every party and even made its way to our Parliament’s chamber. A thoroughly embarrassing spectacle that has shone a light on the worst of politics and confirmed in the minds of the sceptics that we try so hard to convince that politics is indeed a waste of time.

There is no apparent desire to work cohesively across the Scottish parliamentary chamber, even if for the better of the country, and almost every piece of legislation that passes through it is dissected for political gain.

This week has proven that as the makeup of the parliament stands, the interests of the people they represent are rarely actually front and centre. When it comes down to it, politicking will always have the upper hand.

Our political system is in a horrendously polarised state, and the only way to break the deadlock is to inject some life into it. Offer something new and exciting, something that isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo or make waves for the right reasons.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the SNP have been ineffective in finding a cohesive direction of late and the only way we continue to win, and increase support for independence, is to commit wholeheartedly to being the fiercely progressive party that we once were.

READ MORE: Motion of no confidence in Scottish Government fails

We don’t do that by re-electing leaders gone by or even electing leaders that won’t uphold our own manifesto, we do it by stepping outside of the bubble.

It’s been a terrible week optics-wise for the Greens too, given that it was them who destabilised the agreement in the first place before having a thoroughly public tantrum about its demise and even momentarily lining up behind the Tories to oust the First Minister.

While I respect the grassroots activism that challenged the agreement from within the Greens and thought it was a fantastic example of how the grassroots can seriously change things – you can’t propose the end of an agreement and then behave like spoiled children when the exact outcome you flirted with yourself comes to fruition.

I debated a Green party activist on BBC News who was indignant that the Greens would now not have a say because Yousaf decided so.

The fact is that the Greens did not win the election, and while I was very much a supporter of the two parties working in unison and thought the Greens held the SNP to account well on issues like rent control – they simply can’t expect to dictate as though they are the party of government when they do not have the publics full endorsement.

I won’t even bother touching on Labour or the Tories because, frankly, this kind of desperate politics is all they have to offer and it isn’t worth the energy it would take to dissect.

But for the independence movement, this has been a shaky few days and has shone a harsh light on our immediate need to regroup, re-energise and re-focus on what the country is actually looking for.

We are not going to find the answers by continually yapping amongst (or at) ourselves and running around in circles.