NICOLA STURGEON came bearing good news. Support for independence was edging up, declared Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, to applause from her MSPs gathered in Holyrood. But their joy was constrained. Aside from a poll this week that showed that a majority of Scottish voters would support independence in the event of Brexit, the SNP has had a grim fortnight. The reason? Alex Salmond, the party’s previous leader, who faces allegations of sexual misconduct during his time as first minister in 2007-14.

Mr Salmond faces two complaints. Scottish newspapers are filled with lurid details of alleged groping in Bute House, his former residence. No official record of the complaints has been released. Mr Salmond denies the allegations and rejects “any suggestion of criminality”.

The case has dominated Scottish politics since the accusations emerged in late August. Mr Salmond quickly jumped from the party to cut off demands that he be pushed. He has also launched legal proceedings against the Scottish government over its handling of the probe. To pay for it he set up an online Crowdfunder account, into which SNP supporters poured more than £100,000 ($129,000) in just a few days.

Ms Sturgeon was Mr Salmond’s protégée and their relationship one of few examples of a successful political friendship. Now, for the first time, there is a rift between the two, over Mr Salmond’s combative response to the allegations. Talk of a civil war within the SNP is overblown, insist party insiders. Mr Salmond holds no office. While still popular among older members, he has less pull over the swathes of youngsters who flocked to the party after the failed independence vote in 2014.

But Mr Salmond is more than an embarrassing uncle who can be ignored. For decades he personified the push for independence. Since losing his seat in the 2017 general election, his post-politics projects have been unhelpfully public, including hosting a programme on a Kremlin-funded channel, RT. At 63, Mr Salmond has many years ahead of him as a political hippopotamus: a large, unignorable beast that can be by turns comical or dangerous.

The allegations against him come just as Scotland’s flagging independence movement shows signs of revival. SNP membership now outstrips the Conservative Party’s across the whole of Britain. Brexit, which 62% of Scots voted against, is being bungled, stoking demands for freedom from Westminster. A poll this week found that after Brexit, 47% of Scots would back independence, compared with 43% who would vote to stay in the union.

Yet the pitch to break away from Britain has become trickier, too. About a third of SNP voters backed Leave in the Brexit referendum. And the economic case has weakened. Under Mr Salmond, supporters were promised a land of relative riches. Now, the assessment is more sober. In May a report commissioned by the Scottish government admitted that spending would have to come down as a proportion of GDP if Scotland went it alone. Prosperity now comes second to notions of sovereignty.

Ms Sturgeon’s job is made no easier by the renewed prominence of Mr Salmond. When he lost his parliamentary seat, he signed off his concession speech with a couplet from an old Jacobite song: “In the midst of your glee / You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!” He has stayed true to his word. Ms Sturgeon may wish he had not.