John Swinney has faced down SNP rebels to win support for his strategy to secure another referendum on Scottish independence.
The First Minister faced a potential banana skin on the opening day of his party's conference in Aberdeen as grassroots members questioned his constitutional plans.
Swinney has declared the SNP must win a majority of MSPs at the Holyrood election next year to act as a mandate to begin negotiations with the UK Government over staging another vote.
But grassroots members tabled amendments at today's conference session in Aberdeen which insisted a majority of pro-independence MSPs would be enough to declare independence.
Swinney told members to have faith in his plan as the SNP was going to "win big" at May's election.
"I'm asking us today to be clear with the Scottish people what we are offering them and what we're asking of them," he said.
"That we go to our fellow Scots between now and May with a clear, simple and unambiguous message - only a vote for the SNP will secure Scotland's right to decide. Only a vote for the SNP will secure Scotland's independence and that is what this party is about."
The SNP leader continued: "The precedent is clear, when the SNP win a majority, we deliver a referendum on independence. We did it 2011 and I want us to do it in 2026 to give our people a choice on their future.
"Let us agree today that we're not just going to win, we are going to win big. We're going to win a majority for the SNP to deliver that choice for Scotland."
Scottish Labour said the SNP was focusing on independence as the party's record in Government over 18 years had been so poor.
Neil Bibby MSP said: "One person dies from a drug overdose almost every seven hours in Scotland, one in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list, violence is rising in our schools, and a housing emergency is causing misery for families across the country -- yet the SNP has no answers.
"Instead, they waste their time fighting among themselves over the constitution rather than focus on fixing Scotland's public services. The SNP is hopelessly out of touch while services across Scotland are at breaking point.
"Labour delivered an extra £5.2 billion for Scotland's public services, but no one can see what the SNP has done with that money.
"People deserve better than this tired, incompetent government that will put its own obsession with division before Scotland.
"Next year's election is the chance to remove the SNP from power and elect a Scottish Labour government that will end the chaos and take Scotland in a new direction."
Tory MSP Rachael Hamilton said: "The SNP showed themselves in their true colours at this debate, ludicrously labelling the same old obsession with independence 'a fresh start'.
"Even on the one thing they always put first, they were squabbling like Nats in a sack over which version of this fantasy to back.
"One activist called John Swinney's plan a 'donkey' and another, bizarrely, compared the SNP to Jesse Owens. Even Keith Brown, who claimed to be backing his leader, went off-message, talking about a majority of voters rather than of SNP MSPs."