Blind loyalists rush to refill SNP's coffers even while the Murrell fire rages - Jenny Lindsay

Conventionally, the victim runs out of money, goodwill, or credulity. Eventually, they realise they’ve been betrayed.

This is not yet the case for a remarkable number of people who proclaim a belief the only way to achieve a better, more honest politics is through Scottish independence.

While the scandal of former Chief Executive Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of more than £400k of SNP funds made a series of horrifying headlines, these blind loyalists rushed to refill the party’s coffers, donating £25k in the past fortnight.

As the fireworks factory enters its third week ablaze, the true believers continue to insist there’s nothing to see.

The Murrell affair has done nothing to humble a party in urgent need of some humility. First Minister John Swinney has displayed a childish triumphalism during First Minister’s Question Time.

In response to ouchy questions about the SNP’s failed governance, which let Murrell get away with it for so long, he swiftly lost his temper, firing angry, mocking barbs about his opponents’ election results, and bragging about his own.

The optics have been terrible, as has Swinney’s arrogant attitude towards the use of supposedly ring-fenced donations to a second referendum fund, which ended up being used for general party purposes. The entitlement in the First Minister’s ‘nothing to see here’ approach is staggering.

At the heart of the SNP’s tired trundle back to the premier seats in parliament is the misguided trust independence supporters continue to give to the party for one reason, and one reason alone.

It isn’t the SNP’s stellar achievements in government, which are sufficient to fill only the tiniest of egg cups. The party’s die-hard acolytes believe independence will solve all Scotland’s problems, and that the ruling party for nearly two decades has some cunning plan hidden up its sleeve to achieve it.

It does not, for the simple reason the SNP has entirely forgotten the independence strategy drawn up by its most successful leader, the late Alex Salmond.

These independence-nothing-less purists cling to the SNP’s shattered reputation, refusing to accept the damage the party has done to the independence movement. Many others, including me, took our blinkers off long ago. A stubbornly sceptical friend of mine refuses to accept any movement grounded in virtuous idealism. “Idealist is such a polite way of saying idiot,” he laughs, whenever I recount times I’ve allowed myself to be one.

My idealistic streak was never more richly-expressed than during 2012 – 14. Not only convinced Scotland should become independent, I spent hundreds of hours campaigning for it.

I appreciate my own positive experiences during that time were not remotely shared by those on the opposite side. But I threw myself into organising debates, discussions, an entire summer tour of packed-out arts events, as part of a close-knit group of organisers, most of whose names are not known, all of whose work has subsequently been claimed by others.

For us, the joy of those years was in building a community of people who genuinely believed in the possibility of an independent Scotland becoming a small, thriving country with a commitment to improved democracy, political accountability, and genuine social justice at its heart.

Our idealism expressed itself in sometimes eminently mockable ways. The ‘Wish Tree’ project, where people were invited to write their hopes for a better future on tags pinned to a tree sculpture, for example.

We missed we were mostly engaging the already decided. In hindsight, there was a somewhat maniacal quality to the feverish atmosphere in which we were organising.

There was also the small matter of not realising our campaign group was not, perhaps, as grassroots as it had first seemed.

Having asked far too many awkward questions about its directorship, opposing what I thought were too-cosy relationships between us and both Yes Scotland and the SNP, I was turfed out my campaign group a fortnight before the vote.

That hurt aside, on September 19, 2014, we organisers mostly dusted off our disappointment at the result, hoping the democratic engagement we’d been part of would continue.

Instead, we watched as all that energy got swept up into party politics before being squandered.

We saw admirable Yes movement figures such as Joanna Cherry KC monstered for questioning SNP party governance and lunatic policies. We heard the cacophony of abuse and blame No voters received in the years following the referendum.

Last week, the director of my former campaign group was tweeting his own triumphalist takes on increased donations to the SNP’s coffers. He was doing so in his role as SNP online communications officer, a job he strolled into after Yes Scotland’s defeat almost 12 years ago.

My sceptical friend’s point about idiocy makes me laugh, but I think he’s wrong. Some idealism from that time remains worth defending. While I’m furious at the arrogance and entitlement that flourished in the Sturgeon era, I’m saddened more that many of the aims –beyond independence – of our campaign have been forgotten.

Most of us are neither staunchly nationalist nor enthusiastically unionist, and never have been. Surely what we all want, though, is competent, devolved governance, and not to be taken for granted – or for mugs.

For many nationalists, the ‘dream will never die.’ And what those people do with their money is a matter for them.

But throwing hard-earned cash at a scandal-saturated SNP, while John Swinney continues to reject calls for an inquiry, suggests to me the First Minister spotted them the minute they entered the casino.