WELCOME to my first weekly column. In the coming months I hope to use it to support the debate on how we rebuild a strategy to achieve political independence for our country.

I start – as gobsmacked about the election results as everyone else – with questions rather than answers. I will in time reach my own conclusions and advocate them. So will you. In time.

But for now, let’s take a beat. Let’s listen to each other, and to the majority of the people who are still unconvinced. And let us try to be nice, even though we might irritate the hell out of each other.

READ MORE: John Swinney to set out new funding for 'landmark' carbon capture project

We cannot take forever of course.

But for a few months we can have a period of collective self reflection. The more we think, and the more of us who do it, the stronger our conclusions will be.

So, let’s hear suggestions for a strategic way forward. Let’s subject them to rigorous but respectful analysis, stress-testing each proposition to see if it might work in the real world.

I can start by illustrating how not to do it. Two weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of the election defeat, I wrote that those who didn’t vote for the SNP because they believed we didn’t have a strategy for achieving independence had a point.

Within hours Alba were tweeting my words, suggesting that the logical response would be to join their party – as only they had a plan to achieve independence. I can’t see that this helps anyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as partial to a bit of schadenfreude as the next person. But an “I told you so” response doesn’t really work unless you can provide evidence that the alternative works better.

READ MORE: George Kerevan: How the 2026 election could rejuvenate our Parliament

In Alba’s case their central strategic mission is that “every single election should be used to seek a mandate to begin negotiations for independence”. Given the party has just paid nearly ten grand of its members’ money to the state in lost deposits and obtained 0.5% of the votes, it could be said that strategy is not working too well.

In truth, I was mistaken. It wasn’t that the SNP didn’t have a strategy for moving forward to independence. It did. I know that because last year I was one of the people who spent a lot of time arguing about it and eventually getting a resolution through the party conference in October.

The problem was the strategy did not survive its first contact with the electorate. It was a plan predicated on winning a mandate at this election, and then repurposing the 2026 Holyrood election if the new UK Government continued to refuse to discuss changing the constitution.

In the event we didn’t get a mandate, the new UK Government has no dilemma, and the plan is now void. To go forward we need first to go back to first principles.

For Scotland to become an independent country, and to be successful as one, it will require not just the consent, but the support of a majority of people who live there.

That makes it a different project from winning an election. It means people who stay at home are voting against.

READ MORE: Neale Hanvey: I'm relieved my time in Westminster has ended

A new independent future for Scotland requires not only that a majority are persuaded of the argument, but that they are mobilised into an effective political force than can achieve change.

That requires a civic movement wider than any political party. But it does also require a party to win electoral contests. And that will be best created through a reformed and refocused SNP.

The SNP, winning 30% of the vote this month, had the support of most people for whom independence is a priority. If we are to move forward, there are three broad groups of people whom we need to focus on.

There are those who say they do support independence, but it wasn’t the main thing motivating them this time round.

Many of them voted Labour, reasoning that this month’s priority was the change the UK Government, rather than Scotland’s constitution.

Then there are those who support independence but have convinced themselves that the SNP will not deliver it. Many of them will tell you that belief is fuelled by perceived failures of the party in the Scottish Government. Most of them stayed at home, though more than usual seem to have spoiled their ballot.

And then there are people who do not believe that independence is the best way to change their lives and their country in the first place. In the past few years, consumed with internal debates, we have made little or no progress in reducing this number.

We are going to need a strategy which relates to all three of these groups in parallel and has realistic targets for winning people over.

We won’t get them all. We don’t need to. But we do need to start convincing a lot more people than we have been recently.

And that is what this column will be focused on in the months ahead.