You’ve probably noticed that there’s a new documentary about the trial of Alex Salmond being shown on TV this week and one of its themes seems to be that the fall-out from the trial could cause a fatal civil war in the SNP. It’s an idea that’s been around for quite some time. Salmond versus Sturgeon. Salmondistas versus Sturgeonistas. Nationalist versus nationalist. Some unionists think it could be one way of defeating independence. I say: fat chance.

What has encouraged the idea of a civil war and made it a familiar trope in political commentary is that there have already been a few skirmishes that are seen as proxies for the battle between Salmond and Sturgeon. There was the struggle between Angus Robertson and Joanna Cherry over Edinburgh Central, and there have been pot shots from the likes of Kenny MacAskill and Angus MacNeil, and there are some people breaking off into new pro-Yes splinter groups. So yes, to that extent, there’s the start of a “civil war”.

Kirsty Wark, the presenter of the Salmond documentary, also appears to believe the chances of a war are real and that the repercussions could be profound. Writing in The Times, she said that if the schism between Sturgeon and Salmond supporters deepened, it could derail the SNP and change the future of the UK. “It would be akin to a Greek tragedy, but somehow very Scottish,” she writes, “if the two towering figures of the SNP took each other down just as the polls are moving consistently in favour of independence.” The stakes are huge, she said.

But are they really? The idea of a civil war may be something that unionists yearn for, and I have to admit it’s amusing to think of the rather humourless Sturgeon and Swinney as roundheads and the rather more swashbuckling Salmond and Cherry as cavaliers, but I think everyone should calm down a bit before they pick a side. There is undeniably some unhappiness in the SNP, there is disquiet over Sturgeon’s softly-softly stance on the timing of another referendum, and there is a faction that’s still loyal to Salmond. But none of that is quite the same as saying the SNP is on the verge of a civil war.

Take the latest polling on Alex Salmond for example. There was always a group of voters who were turned off by Mr Salmond’s alpha-male bombast – all that stuff about the Scottish lion roaring – but there’s another group that stayed true to him and has been willing to adjust the facts according to their loyalty rather than adjust their loyalty according to the facts, which is how tribalism works for some people. When Mr Salmond first faced the charges of sexual assault of which he was acquitted in March, some said it was a Unionist/MI5/UK plot. They also said things about the accusers that proves there are parts of Scotland that MeToo hasn’t reached.

But that was quite a long time ago now: 2018 and in the two years that have passed since then, Mr Salmond’s popularity has taken a dive. In 2014, he had a plus 35 rating among Scottish voters despite losing the referendum, but, six years on, the latest YouGov survey has his approval rating at minus 42. Not only that, his popularity in Scotland is almost as bad as the one thing Mr Salmond despises the most: a Tory prime minister. Who would have thought it?

What it means for the longer term is that the chances of a civil war in the SNP, which were small to begin with, may be receding even further. A war needs two sides to fight, but Mr Salmond’s ratings show that his ability to muster troops is much diminished. About 20 per cent of the electorate still think positively about him – a figure you may think remarkably high given the circumstances – but that’s a rump rather than an army and even among SNP supporters only 35% think favourably of him. It weakens his ability to fight a civil war if he wants to. He cannot roar as loudly as he once could.

The reason Mr Salmond’s popularity has fallen in this way is mostly because of how Scottish nationalism works. The former leader attracts some personal loyalty and there will be others who are loyal because they think he would take a more aggressive approach than Sturgeon and could still win a referendum for them. But other SNP supporters have written him off because their loyalty to nationalism is stronger than their loyalty to any policy or person, including Alex Salmond. If Mr Salmond has become a burden rather than an asset in their eyes, then it’s Goodbye Alex.

The deeper loyalty of nationalists also helps to explain the current position of the Scottish Government. A party that’s been in power for as long as the SNP has would normally expect to be in a state of decay and most of the familiar factors are in place: sexual scandal, policy failures, and U-turns. But SNP voters will not – cannot – do what voters would normally do in such circumstances which is to switch to another party. That’s simply not possible in their case because the SNP is the only major party that supports independence. Therefore, despite everything, they must stay loyal.

What the loyalty means in the end is that all the talk about civil war in the SNP is grossly exaggerated: the chances of a war in the SNP are very small indeed, however bad things get in the fall-out from Mr Salmond’s trial, and however bad things get for Nicola Sturgeon’s government. It also means that the chance of division among nationalists damaging support for independence, and boosting unionism, is even remoter. Unionists had better come up with another plan pronto.

Alex Salmond may still attempt something of course – he may still try to muster some troops under his tattered standard – and even if he doesn’t, his supporters will still grumble and plot, mostly on Twitter. But the good news for the Yes side is that most SNP supporters wouldn’t join the war even if there was one because they care about the bigger struggle, the one they’re obsessed with, the one they look closer than ever before to winning: the struggle to break up the United Kingdom.

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