I FIND myself deep in cognitive dissonance territory today – hacking through the bracken of emotion versus logic: the emotional half of my brain thinking one thing, while the logical side says "hang on a minute, mate, hold your horses".

As the disastrous effects of Boris Johnson’s Brexit fantasy rip through the country, that emotional half of me is shouting: "Launch the lifeboats, Nicola – get us the hell out of here now!". But the other half of me is muttering in the background: "And just where’s that lifeboat going?"

Here’s the problem: independence should be a ship everyone wants to board. All we have to do is look at the hybrid madness caused by Boris Johnson’s staggeringly inept Government coupled with the chaos of Brexit. That should be enough to make anyone run up the gangplank. Stagflation, the energy crisis, petrol shortages, rising prices, missing workers and empty shelves. It sends shivers of black and white tinted terror through anyone old enough to remember the first Winter of Discontent.

So why is the Good Ship Independence floating in the doldrums, going nowhere – why aren’t people clambering for a berth? One answer: the SNP. The party has done nothing to advance the idea of independence in years. It’s failed utterly to tackle big, scary questions surrounding currency and borders. Worse: it’s governed badly. It’s not enough to say the Sturgeon Government is a paragon of efficiency compared to Westminster. That simply weighs mediocre against terrible. The SNP, as the torch-bearer of independence, should have spent its 14 years in power proving what Scotland could be in the future. Instead, it’s become a lazy, entitled administration.

Read more: SNP has drained indy campaign of passion

If you cannot run an ambulance service, how on earth are you going to run an independent nation? If you can’t even set up a public energy company in the midst of a climate catastrophe – with Greens in government beside you – why should anyone ever trust you’ll make the right calls for Scotland?

There’s an expression overused in fancy-schmantzy circles these days – "liminal". Sadly, I must become slightly fancy-schmantzy myself and use the word, for I’m in a "liminal" space right now – on the border, on a threshold, on a shoreline. Perhaps, that’s why I find the metaphor of independence as a lifeboat so fitting. I want to embark; I want to get in that boat, I want it to start sailing. But I don’t trust the crew who’ll be taking me on that journey. So I stand at the shore, looking at the land on fire behind me, but doubting the capabilities of the team who I must trust to lead me to safety.

Here we get to the heart of the problem for independence today. Support looks to be cooling, there seems a slow decline afoot. Yet, how can that be possible when there’s Boris Johnson in Downing Street? Why is the recruiting sergeant not recruiting?

Support for independence hit a high in autumn last year, getting to 52% at one stage. Recent polling mostly puts No in the lead again, however. Of late there’s been a Yes-No split in various surveys of 44-47, 45-49, 45-48. In the nine big polls since the Holyrood election, only one put Yes in the lead; one was tied. Figures used here include undecideds, because those undecideds matter.

Unlike me, those undecideds don’t back independence. I do. I see independence as a natural state of affairs. However, I loathe nationalism – I don’t care about flags and Scottish exceptionalism and all that creepy tosh. I know this country can go it alone – plenty of other nations have done just the same and prospered. But I’m cautious about who leads this country to independence, and the shape that they inflict on independence. If independence is just a matter for the SNP then I grow wary – how can I not, given the party’s recent catalogue of failures from the ambulance crisis to its sham pretence at being green?

Nicola Sturgeon is in an incredible position – almost as if the gods had blessed her. No matter what cock-up her party finds itself in, nationalists can always point south and say "well we’re not that, are we?".

It’s not good enough, however. Ms Sturgeon may well be Marcus Aurelius compared to Mr Johnson, but take the comparator away and she’s running a frankly poor administration.

And yet, what’s better than Ms Sturgeon and her team up here? Look around you, she’s a giant surrounded by buzzing midges. Unless you’re so partisan as to lose sight of reality, can you really say that Anas Sarwar, Alex Cole-Hamilton or the laughable Douglas Ross challenge Ms Sturgeon in any real or meaningful way? Labour has no chance of reviving in Scotland under Sir Keir Starmer (though Angela Rayner might give nationalists a run for their money) – and let’s be real, the Tories are the Tories and this is Scotland so they’ll be on the opposition benches for decades to come at least.

Within the Yes movement, alternatives to the SNP basically don’t exist. In the public mind, Alba is the loony fringe – and rightly so – while the Greens are co-opted into the SNP, an act they may well live to regret.

Read more: The Scottish Greens have become patsies for the SNP’s cynical centrism

Like many independence supporters, my reasons for backing independence become more negative by the day. Rather than believe in the SNP’s vision of independence, I simply distrust the nightmare that’s running around Westminster. Yes supporters who claim the SNP will be irrelevant post-independence are just delusional.

And like nearly every thinking independence supporter I want a positive story. I don’t want to hold a political position out of fear or resentment, I want to hold a political position out of hope.

This catastrophe that’s unfolding across the UK as Brexit starts to deeply wound the nation is an opportunity for Ms Sturgeon to tell a new story to the Scottish people. But she’s wasted too long letting the prospectus for independence rot on the shelf. It needs renewed and it needs renewed now. Otherwise those looking for lifeboats may decide that it’s better to stay on the shore – even as the land burns behind them – than risk a dangerous crossing with a feckless crew.

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