IF only we could go back to a time just after the referendum in 2014. That was when the SNP and the Yes movement were at their zenith.

On retiring as First Minister, Alex Salmond certainly left the SNP and the Yes movement united and full of fire. The polls were consistently as high as they had ever been and I was delighted that his protege, Nicola Sturgeon, had taken over the reins and that Scottish independence was within touching distance.

The election to Westminster eight months later proved that point of unity with the return of 56 SNP MPs out of 59 in Scotland. What a platform to take back our independence.

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Nicola was there to lead Scotland to political victory but little did I know that her head would be turned to more pressing issues espoused by those who were happy to use the movement for issues unrelated to achieving our goal of independence. What she has done is bring toxicity to people who had previously stood shoulder to shoulder with each other. From being in a position of strength under Salmond, we are now in a position of losing any referendum which is called in the near future.

We cannot win a referendum without any preparation, and after seven years in charge none has been carried out. Who does that benefit? Yet when we hear some who were not active before the referendum making negative comments through their letters and social media about people like Alex Salmond, Kenny MacAskill, Joanna Cherry, Neale Hanvey and many more it is pitiful and completely unwarranted.

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I know what past SNP national organisers like Ian Macdonald and John McAteer would think about the path today’s SNP have taken and I doubt it would be complimentary. As for many of our elected MPs and MSPs, they are not prepared to give up the power they have acquired. They see it like a big apple pie that everyone is happy enough to take a large slice from. That is where leadership comes in. Unfortunately, they get the first slice and they are hungry.

It didn’t have to be like this if we had carried on from where Salmond had left the Yes movement after the referendum. We would certainly have been closer to independence today. Those who make such unwarranted and unnecessary statements about the men and women who have given their political life’s blood to achieve Scottish independence over many years do so through listening to third parties with an axe to grind. Obviously, they have no idea about the efforts that those they criticise and many others have made over the years.

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Could you imagine past stalwarts like Robert McIntyre, Donald Stewart, Iain McCormack, Margo MacDonald and Billy Wolfe together with countless others falling into line in support of the FM and her obsession with self- ID and the Hate Crime Bill to the detriment of independence? Of course there were disagreements and arguments in those days, but you will get arguments in all organisations and even in our own homes, but it does not have to end in a bitter divorce. Though sometimes the Unionist media presented it like a catastrophe.

What is going on today within the SNP is like death by a thousand cuts. The behaviour, in particular, from some of our present elected representatives and taken up by others towards Joanna Cherry and Alex Salmond, is obsessive; they are like zealots going after their targets. It is becoming clearer that no dyed-in-the-wool FM-supporting career politician is going to turn away from holding power, even if it means abandoning principles that they have claimed for themselves. Unsurprisingly, like many other elected representatives they have found it is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. Unless they are truly independent of mind and are prepared to act on it most if not all of our representatives will find a reason to keep their head down.

The FM has no intention of ever trying to work with anyone outwith her own appointees. Those SNP MPs and MSPs who turn and look the other way are complicit in encouraging the deplorable behaviour from unscrupulous career politicians and others. Unfortunately, Alba Party members have no option but to either capitulate and pick up the carrots being thrown at them by the SNP, or fight their corner. I just heard a bell and the first round is under way...

Bill Clark
Fort William