WHEN Nicola Sturgeon says that she feels partly British (as well as Scottish); when the SNP leader in Westminster Ian Blackford says he loves the House of Commons and has a good number of Tory friends there; and when Stephen Noon, the architect of Yes Scotland’s campaign in 2014, says that the SNP should compromise on independence, you know something is afoot.

But what? It’s not what the Cybernats fear – this is no nationalist surrender. Nor is it what the Britnats crave – this is no nationalist concession. It is, however, an unmistakable sign that the nationalists are reorganising, resetting their approach, readying themselves for what promises to be a busy, active, fast-moving autumn. The political summer holiday is over.

For some time, nationalists have divided into three broad camps. First there are the smart ones, who know that the road to independence is long and that the key to getting there is patience. Stephen Noon, one of the smartest of them all, is firmly in this camp, as are a number of others who, behind the scenes, were crucial to the achievements secured by Yes Scotland in 2014 (the cause moved, you will recall, from having 28% support at the start of the campaign to 45% at its end – and, all these years later, it has never moved back).

At the other end of the nationalist spectrum sit the angry brigade, the keyboard warriors, inhabitants of echo chambers in which everyone hates the Tories only marginally more than they hate how the Scottish Government hasn’t won independence yet. They exhibit impatience at every turn: they know what they want and they want it now, with never a thought as to how they are actually going to win over folk who do not already agree with them. Lose indyref2? No bother! They’ll just get themselves all revved up for indyref3. There is no need to name names here, but you know who these people are (and no, not all of them have migrated to Alba).

Nicola Sturgeon’s incredibly tight band of close advisers sit uncomfortably between these groups. She knows that she must keep both groups broadly aligned behind her – she will need the brains of the first as well as the passionate activism of the second if she is ever to fire the starting gun on a winning independence campaign.

She also knows that if that gun is fired prematurely it will serve only to shoot the entire Yes movement in the foot. And this matters, for the nationalists are rightly haunted by something big.

There were two secession referendums in Quebec. They were fifteen years apart, in 1980 and 1995. The second was decided on a razor-edge, never mind a knife-edge. And yet that second defeat for the separatists (as they were called in Quebec) proved decisive, indeed terminal.

The secessionist cause died after 1995. Go to Quebec now and you won’t find it. Ms Sturgeon knows, if she loses indyref2, there will never be a third attempt. Lose twice and it really is over. Not for a generation. Not for a lifetime. Just over. Fatally. Forever.

Nicola Sturgeon is a famously cautious politician. The signals she, Ian Blackford and Stephen Noon have sent of late are a sign of that caution. For now really isn’t the time. That phrase, coined by David Mundell for Theresa May to use when she was in No 10, has never been more apt.

There is only one political story in town this autumn, and it is not the blessed constitution. It’s the cost of living crisis. This matters hugely to nationalist calculations because they know (as do their opponents) that Scots are much more averse to independence in times of economic hardship than in times of plenty. For many Scots the United Kingdom is a safe haven, and that port of call is never so needed as in an economic crisis.

Independence may or may not be worth it – as we all know, there are different views about that – but one thing is certain, and that is that independence is a risk. That risk might seem worth taking when times are prosperous, with a booming economy, when confidence is high. But that is self-evidently not where we are nor where we are heading. Calling indyref2 now would be electoral suicide for the nationalists, no matter how tempted they may be to make a run for it.

This does not mean that the Scottish Government does nothing in the meantime: still less that the nationalists pack their bags and disappear. Rather, they will use the coming weeks and months to draw all the contrasts they can between themselves and the new government in Downing Street.

Liz Truss is inexperienced, liable to gaffes, addicted to shooting from the hip, uncontrolled, and apt to speak (and act) impetuously. Nicola Sturgeon, when she’s at the top of her game, is none of these things. What her small, close circle of advisers sees, I think, is an opportunity not to push ahead with a referendum just now, but to build that case – steadily, slowly, patiently – that the inexperience, the gaffes, the lack of control, and the impetuousness we are about to see from the new UK government is something Scotland, one day, could be free from.

Unionists should breathe no sigh of relief about any of this. The nationalists are at their most dangerous not when they are champing at the bit or frothing at the mouth, but when they (and not us unionists) look like the grown-ups in the room. Truss v Sturgeon will give them every opportunity to do just that, I fear.

To think of it as the nationalists taking their foot off the pedal would be the wrong metaphor altogether. The nationalists are changing gear, to one that fits the grim mood of the times. Liz Truss and her tribe had better be ready.