‘WHAT do you do when democracy fails you?” sang The Proclaimers back in the 1980s. The SNP Westminster contingent answered that question in style when they walked out of the House of Commons last week. They took a stand. What you don’t do is shrug your shoulders and raise the white flag. You don’t win respect by cowering in a corner – and if nothing else, the message has been sent loud and clear right across the UK and beyond that Scotland is not a doormat. Labour’s response was telling. Early next morning, Paul Sweeney, their shadow minister for Scotland, spectacularly misjudged the public mood by condemning the SNP MPs for their “self-indulgent, petulant stunt”.

Within days, 8000 new members had signed up to the SNP – rather more, I suspect, than the numbers motivated to join the party by the Growth Commission report – while even pro-Union media commentators were grudgingly conceding that the tactic of disrupting Parliament had been a roaring success.

Most people who read this column will probably know I’m not a member of the SNP or any other political party. They may also remember I wrote a column last autumn suggesting newly elected Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard would be a formidable opponent who might even push the party to become more open to independence. I’ll now put up my hands and admit I got it wrong – on both counts.

Labour’s momentum, so to speak, has seized up like a clapped-out old Lada. In the latest poll, published in a newspaper yesterday, the party continues to languish in third place behind the Tories in Scotland, with just 24% and 23% in the Holyrood constituencies and regions respectively. To put that in perspective: even under the detested premiership of Margaret Thatcher, the Tories never fell to that level of support in Scotland in three successive general elections.

Richard Leonard has failed to ignite much enthusiasm, and just looks out of his depth most of the time. By all accounts, he was a capable backroom researcher, but as a leader, he has the passion of David Mundell combined with the charisma of a Dalek. That wouldn’t be such a problem, except for two fundamental political flaws at the heart of the party. The first is independence. Jeremy Corbyn, we know, is personally popular among large numbers of younger voters. But in Scotland, that demographic is strongly in favour of independence.

Labour might still be capable of gathering a bit of support among young Scots at a Westminster election by presenting the party as the only alternative to the Tories at UK level. Up against the SNP at Holyrood, however, they look like throwbacks to a bygone age.

The other problem for Labour – and this applies as much in England and Wales as it does in Scotland – is that young people are strongly anti-Brexit. This weekend it was reported in the UK press that a left-wing student-based organisation that has been spearheading opposition to tuition fees and education cuts will now participate in anti-Brexit demos. Many of the activists involved in the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) are, according to reports, Corbyn supporters – but are becoming impatient with Labour’s dithering inconsistency over Brexit.

In England and Wales, the lack of a serious left-of-centre alternative means Labour can just muddle through by steering a murky middle course. But in Scotland, the hardline stance of the SNP against Brexit – underpinned by the 62 per cent Remain vote in 2016 – offers a strong attraction to young people. So, on the two great constitutional issues of our times, which will dominate British politics for years to come, a mighty dividing wall runs right through Labour’s potential support base. In Scotland especially, Labour will struggle to rise beyond a quarter of the vote for the foreseeable future unless and until it makes a radical double policy change. Indeed, things could get even worse for Scottish Labour. Some research suggests that almost one in three of those who voted for them at the 2017 general election was pro-independence. Many of these are young voters who are also likely to find the SNP’s combative approach to Brexit more appealing than the deferential passivity of Paul Sweeney.

Like many others who voted Remain, I’m no fervent fan of the European Union. But the prospect of a Brexit Britain leaves me stone cold.

The alternative to being part of the single market is not a Fortress Britain run by Jeremy Corbyn. This is not 1975. In the globalised, interconnected world of the 21st century, where transnational capital recognises no borders, we cannot live in splendid isolation.

If we turn our back on Europe, we will end up under the thumb of the United States. That’s why Donald Trump implores the UK to make a clean break with the EU. And that’s why his closest political ally on this side of the Atlantic is Nigel Farage.

On this side of the Border we are already carving out a different path. More people than ever before believe Scotland is destined to become an independent state, according to that weekend poll. The biggest dispute seems to be over the timescale rather than the principle. The tide is flowing towards a new beginning. And as for Scottish Labour, in the words of Bob Dylan: “You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing.”