Analysis: Party members are highly active and have been waiting for this moment all their lives

The four-part campaign – galvanising members; reaching out to non-members; engagement as ambassadors of independence; and mobilising support in Scotland’s communities – looks unremarkable, with the exception of reaching out beyond party members.

It is the proposed scale of this campaign that is unprecedented. The targets to win the referendum are extremely ambitious. Doubling membership and seeking financial contributions beyond what has ever before been asked of supporters are demanding.

But the real ambition is the unquantifiable time and effort expected of members. Supporters of independence know well that this is a battle in which they start from well behind in terms of resources.

The resources of the UK state will be employed in its own defence. The media will be overwhelmingly against independence, as will most of the Scottish elites.

The SNP will be campaigning against combined forces. There are few supporters of independence in other parties.

While the SNP has in recent years been highly successful in gaining endorsements from major public figures in its election campaigns, this campaign is very different.

It seems unlikely that all of those who have endorsed the party will support independence.

But the SNP knows this. Its membership is highly active, and they have been waiting for this moment all their lives.

What it does have is a highly motivated membership with a goal. It needs to create on a national scale the excitement that it has famously generated in some by-elections. It needs the equivalent of Hamilton 1967, Govan 1973, Govan 1988 and Glasgow East 2008 – the length and breadth of Scotland.

• Professor James Mitchell is head of the School of Government & Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde.