WHY did Kezia Dugdale really resign -- personal reasons, pressure from the Corbynistas or both?

The business of empty speculation is a popular spectator sport so nae doot it will run a while yet. After all, the lukewarm battle to succeed her is a pretty dismal and easily ridiculed affair. And yet – for the cause of independence it could yet be a vital one.

Now I’ll grant you the runners and riders at this stage are either off-putting for lefties and Yessers or gey reticent.

I’d be amazed, for example, if the ambitious right-winger Anas Sarwar will restrain himself from making a bid, even though Anas would be a virtual reprise of Jim Murphy in terms of attitude, politics and disastrous outcome for Scottish Labour.

Neil Findlay -- the Corbynite MSP beaten by Kezia last time round – has ruled himself out. Alex Rowley – a left-leaning former leader of Fife Council – seems to have opted to hang on to the deputy’s role instead. Richard Leonard looks likely to be a contender, though as an MSP who only recently entered parliament he might have trouble making the leap from backbencher to party leader. For independence supporters, Leonard also has form as political officer of the GMB in 2014 when the union infuriated many members by calling on Scots to vote No. Monica Lennon has championed the fight against period poverty and is a feisty performer at First Minister’s Questions, but she too has ruled herself out for the top job now.

Of course the party’s business manager at Holyrood, James Kelly, and former interim leader Jackie Baillie are (as I write) still possibles.

Jings – it’s as sair a fecht for Scottish Labour now as it was when Kezia Dugdale stepped into the breach two short but eventful years ago. As Ruth Wishart put it in a very apt tweet on Tuesday night; “Kez Dugdale has gone. A woman who accepted a poisoned chalice when many of the boys remembered they were washing their hair.”

Now of course, it’s maybe a bit soon to have absolutely definite commitments from all Dugdale’s would-be successors (though the prospect of her departure has been headlines news for weeks). But if the boys (and girls) who might have the best chance of steering Scottish Labour to a better position on independence still have personal grooming priorities in 2017, that should be a matter of regret for every independence supporter.

Now I ken.

Schadenfreude is all around and it’s hard not to shed crocodile tears aplenty for a party that has bottled every opportunity to offer leadership north of the Border.

And faced with the usual queue of folk NOT rushing forward to take the top job, it’s easy to gloat, point out gleefully what a low ebb the Scottish Labour Party has reached and hope that a polarising personality like Anas Sarwar becomes leader – forcing Corbynistas and Labour’s growing indy supporting crew to vote SNP next time round.

That is one powerful and increasingly probable scenario.

But until yesterday afternoon there was another one.

The one that helped many of our Nordic neighbours to independence in the last century – a scenario where “mainstream” Unionist parties are slowly converted to the desirability or inevitability of independence. Many never became mad enthusiasts or even open advocates of independence, but their openness to that destination normalised it and took the constitutional question out of the ghetto. It happened in Norway and to a lesser extent in Iceland – and it could happen in Scotland. If the right candidate for the Scottish Labour leadership had dared to step forward.

Now I know that hasn’t happened. And it maybe isn’t worth wasting time over.

But everyone who reads this paper supports the goal of political independence for Scotland. The question is whether that goal is brought closer or pushed further away by what happens next for Scottish Labour. To put it another way – the strategy of independence through support for one enormous party (the SNP) has had a few dunts. So a strategy led by the SNP and Greens with the support of former opponents, like the Scottish Labour Party – may be more viable. Maybe not immediately. But perhaps by 2021.

After all, Labour for Indy can now organise freely within Scottish Labour and four Labour councillors have “come out” as voting Yes. A tiny proportion of course – but a start.

Analysts of Scottish Labour’s performance at the last General Election agree that their vote got squeezed by a middle-of-the-road approach. Scottish Labour didn’t support Corbyn or independence – the two popular currents running amongst traditional Labour voters.

Labour will never be better Unionists than Ruth Davidson’s flag-waving, tank-loving Tories. And it will never outperform the SNP as the party that stands up best for Scotland. So Scottish Labour’s best bet is to push for Corbyn policies in forthcoming elections instead of opposing independence as Kezia Dugdale did so disastrously in every election on her watch.

In short – with the right leader, the brick wall of opposition to any discussion of independence within the Scottish Labour Party might be ready to crumble.

By yesterday, the leader most likely to deliver that scenario said he wouldn’t stand because he had no ambition to become First Minister.

Last year, as Kezia’s deputy Rowley said Labour needed to open up the debate on independence and Scotland’s constitutional future. I’ve no doubt he and many others are still gripped by unfounded optimism about the hopeless case for a federal Britain – a boat that sailed long ago in top-down, England-dominated Britain. But Rowley, like many on the old/Corbyn left, has proved he is at least open to considering a new position should the moment arise -- on social justice lines at least.

Yet Alex Rowley has decided not to stand.

This is a plea for him to reconsider.

And I’d suggest it’s in the interests of independence supporters for him to do so, even though it feels much easier to mock his lack of smeddum and Scottish Labour’s general lack of direction.

Why? Well, with another referendum almost certainly due within the next five years, one consideration should dominate our thinking and our comments.

What do our actions and our words feel like to the 20 per cent of voters who didn’t vote Yes last time but are open to persuasion?

My guess is that a lot of them are Labour Party supporters, who don’t want to see Kezia Dugdale’s nose venomously rubbed in the dirt. And may not want to choose between Corbyn’s vision of socialism (and we can all have a long discussion about how truly socialist or viable his proposals are) and Scottish independence. These voters may soon be ready to conclude that one is the likeliest means of obtaining the other. But not if Scottish Labour is led by Anas Sarwar.

That brings us to an awkward reality for the SNP, which has tried for some time to be all things to all people. It could yet face some genuine competition on the left from a party whose leader cannot automatically be dismissed as a home rule hater.

But only with the right leader – and as far as I can see there is no other candidate but Alex Rowley.

He may not desire it. He may have a sock drawer to organise.

He may not have the towering ambition to be First Minister – actually that works for me in exactly the way that his predecessor Jim Murphy’s naked ambition to become First Minister at all costs did not.

Admittedly, I’m not a Labour voter.

But there’s still the chance for him to reconsider or find another candidate to stand for the leadership who is left-leaning with an open outlook towards independence.

If such a candidate doesn’t come forward, Scottish Labour is finished as a meaningful force. Some will weep, more will scoff. But a very few will realise how close Scottish Labour came to turning the corner back into political relevance.