WITH countless polls showing the SNP are set to dominate the upcoming Holyrood election in May, it may seem counter-intuitive to predict that the future of the party currently stands on a knife edge.

Yet with the announcement of an 11-point plan to secure a legal referendum on independence, events are now in motion that leave Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP in a position where they must deliver that independence or face terminal decline.

For the past year, internal factions within the SNP seeking to replace the current leadership have largely spent their time snapping at the fringes of the independence debate, singing a song of sound and fury, signifying the sum total of hee-haw.

Their criticisms have broadly been around accusations that the leadership has abandoned the indy cause for greener pastures. With this announcement to pursue a legal referendum by alternative means, should Boris Johnson cling to his undemocratic decrees, Sturgeon has potentially put an end to some carping from the sidelines.

In hindsight, it will seem faintly ridiculous to have ever pressed the idea that the party’s leadership wasn’t seriously looking at every route to independence – though it may have been politically advantageous to do so.

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If anything, it has been interesting to see anti-Sturgeon faction figures scrambling to take credit for the work of the SNP leadership, which seemingly has been moving the case for independence forward behind the scenes.

Yet with more cracks than ever showing across the party, this latest announcement comes with heavier consequences than any previous attempt to corral the Yes movement and party activists. While earlier endeavours like the Summer of Independence may have come to nothing, and with little notice, the latest route to a referendum will be under far more scrutiny.

Failure to deliver now would only confirm to every doubter that the current administration is incapable of securing independence. Without tangible progress, the tickling doubts of the anti-Sturgeon factions will become the de facto narrative of the party faithful – and that has consequences for us all.

Sturgeon’s would-be successors do not have the appeal to maintain the party’s political supremacy in Scotland. Failure to deliver on independence now will give the mutineers all the ammunition they need to take the helm, and with it drive any hope of independence in the near future into the ground.

The SNP have often been caught in a contradictory trap between political opponents who accuse the government of being obsessed with independence to the exclusion of all else, and activists who actually wish that was the case.

The reality is that the SNP have maintained their grip on Scottish politics, for better and worse, because they appear competent where others do not. An administration that dropped everything to focus solely on constitutional matters would not last long – and without a pro-independence majority at Holyrood the prospect of a second referendum would unfortunately remain at an impossible distance.

Worse still is the prospect of securing a second independence referendum only to lose it.

Despite our loss in 2014, successive Westminster governments gave us immediate and ample opportunities to keep the flame of independence alive from one year to the next – but this isn’t 2014. There isn’t a Brexit referendum in the near future; no potential for the “significant change” that could justify holding a third referendum in quick succession. This time, if there is a No vote, it’s for keeps.

With the chance to take a different path extinguished, and the SNP’s raison d’etre irrelevant for the time being, hopes for independence would likely diminish as Scots settle into the long, dark of Brexit.

The Tories, too, will likely have learnt their lesson, and will know that launching into a bombastic offensive as happened in the wake of the first independence referendum will only backfire – though whether or not the current Conservative Government is even capable of treading softly in victory remains an unknown factor.

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With the Tories currently prattling on about the “woke left” independence movement, we can maybe take heart that they’ll accidentally find a way to spur Scotland toward independence following a No vote once again, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.

If the SNP fail to grasp this chance to secure independence the consequences will be fatal to the party’s popularity.

To see the Scottish Parliament unable to support self-determination when consecutive polls show that the people are behind it would be such a mis-step as to set the cause back decades, particularly when the UK is currently making such a compelling argument for its own demise.

It would be a serious mistake to treat this plan as simple pre-election pandering that can be quietly dropped once the votes are in.

This situation is a monster of the SNP’s own creation. Failure to challenge internal factionalism has led us to this moment, where the SNP have no choice but to move forward.

Lucky for them the timing is right.