IT was no surprise that the first cabinet meeting of the Scottish Government since the General Election avoided talking, officially, about a second independence referendum. There's currently a great disturbance in the Force, as the leader, Nicola Sturgeon, “reflects” on whether to shelve the referendum or press ahead. Activists are restive – fed up with the emotionally draining stop-go. Many want action.

But the First Minister is right to hold off making any snap pronouncements, and her new safety-first Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, is unlikely to break ranks. The timing of any future independence referendum is becoming an existential question for the SNP, of the kind that could split the party for decades.

The more social democratic elements in the SNP are committed to independence, but they aren't so desperate for national freedom that it can't wait a while. They believe the SNP can't ignore the result of the election: the loss of 21 seats was a serious setback and has left the party in a quandary over whether to try to win back seats that have gone back to the Tories in the Borders and the north-east, or to carry on with consolidating working class support in the central belt.

Moreover, the landscape has changed since the election. Hard Brexit has been defeated. The talk in Westminster now is of “open”, “soft” and “flexible” Brexit, which means that Ms Sturgeon's objective of keeping Scotland in the European single market is back on the agenda. It would be best to wait until that process has completed before deciding whether or not to go for a second independence referendum.

Back in December, Ms Sturgeon effectively offered to shelve a referendum if Scotland got that “special deal” in the Brexit talks. I'm beginning to wonder if SNP activists actually heard what she said back then, because few appear to have realised the implications of it. She effectively said she was prepared to trade independence now for membership of the single market.

Did no one in the SNP ask what would happen if the First Minister actually got what she asked for? Now that soft Brexit is back in the realm of the possible, it is very difficult to argue that the Scottish Government should press ahead with a referendum. The priority should working with other parties to ensure that hard Brexit is killed off for good.

Anyway, the reality is that Scots are simply scunnered by elections and referendums, and now is not the time to start try their patience by talking about another one. There's too much uncertainty about the future of Scotland's relationship with Europe for there to be any coherent debate about Scotland's relationship with the rest of the UK. Meanwhile, team Corbyn is attracting many of the SNP's youthful cadres to his brand of allotment socialism. Better to wait until that excitement wears off and Scots realise that the Tories haven't gone a way.

But the more fundamentalist wing of the party – I'm not going to name names because they'd only launch a campaign against MSM lies – believe that waiting around for a more propitious time for independence is little short of treachery. The SNP won the General Election comfortably. The triple lock is in place. The Scottish Parliament – the supreme expression of democratic will in Scotland – has voted for an independence referendum. This cannot be undone. Indeed, Ms Sturgeon does not have the right to call off a referendum at her own personal whim.

The press-aheaders think this alignment of the planets will never come again, and they have a point. Things can only get worse for the Scottish Government. Ms Sturgeon is coming unstuck over education, health and the economy. Many believe she has been lured into a Unionist trap by saying that her administration should be judged on improving school performance and closing the attainment gap. These are intractable problems, and it is naïve to believe that the Scottish Government can re-engineer Scottish society short of independence.

The Scottish Government has also fallen into the “fiscal trap” of devolved taxation. The trap was to invite it to reverse welfare cuts like the bedroom tax and the two-child cap by raising income tax alone. Income tax is the toxic tax that UK governments avoid because they know voters hate it. Even Labour has promised not to raise basic rate income tax and to rely on wealth taxes, dividend taxes, corporation tax and so on over which Holyrood, of course, has no power.

Press-aheaders fear Ms Sturgeon risks building up great expectations without the means to pay for it, except by alienating middle Scotland. She will now be under huge pressure from the revived Scottish Labour party, and the nationalist left, to use her income tax raising powers to address social ills. This could kill off the SNP's chances of winning back seats that have gone to the Conservatives, and many middle class voters in urban areas.

The SNP is essentially a single issue party, whose sole objective should be winning independence by uniting diverse elements in Scottish society behind the cause. This means appealing to not just to Women for Independence and Common Space, but also to rural Scotland, businesses large and small, professionals and even Brexiters. The SNP should not be trying to establish socialism in one country while Scotland is still under Westminster rule.

The General Election, while a setback, did not indicate any drop in support for independence. In most polls, the Yes vote is still holding up. It only needs a few percentage points to get it over the line. Ms Sturgeon should take advantage of the disarray in Westminster to accelerate her original schedule. If she doesn't, disillusion will set in and this historic opportunity will be lost.

How will she resolve this dilemma? Well, I suspect she'll try to have it both ways: press ahead and press the pause button at the same time. The First Minister will say she's fully prepared to engage with talks about “soft” Brexit and remark that, obviously, a referendum must wait until that's resolved. She'll also say that once the Brexit process is complete, the democratic will of the Scottish parliament must be honoured (whatever happens to be in the 2020s).

After all, no one was suggesting there should be a referendum tomorrow. Ms Sturgeon can fall back on her original vague timetable, hoping that everyone forgets about referendums while Westminster enters a period of unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty. This look-both-ways approach, however, requires strict discipline in the party, from both sides. Which is why the word is going out: whatever you do, just don't talk about the referendum.