The price we’ll all pay for a Labour-SNP pact

Sometimes you just need to accept that some political problems do not have a solution. One such is the Labour party’s increasingly fraught relationship with Scotland. One opinion poll published earlier this summer suggested the erstwhile people’s party now commands the support of just 14 per cent of Scottish voters. The optimistic view of this finding is that the party has finally hit rock bottom and, hence, the only way forward is also the way up. The gloomier view is that 14 per cent is pretty much as good as it will get for Labour. They are where they are because that is where they deserve to be.

Uniquely, the Labour party needs the support of Scots who voted for independence in 2014 and those who voted against it. It must be a Unionist party while still winning the support of Scots open to independence. It is not easy to craft a message that appeals to both these groups and nigh-on impossible to do so if the national question remains the single most important dividing line in Scottish politics.