Indy party led by Salmond might be just what the Yes movement needs

To be fair to Robertson, he wasn’t the only one in the ranks of Scottish Labour who held such a belief. In his case, though, this was merely one of several increasingly unhinged statements about the nature of the independence movement. His response and those of his Labour colleagues reveal two enduring truths about how power in the UK is accessed and deployed.

In the Labour party in Scotland it had begun to settle like a blight. Their attempts at constructing anything that radically challenged the established order of British politics and society would eventually sink.

Robertson embodied what Labour have become in the past 30 years: a mild party of the centre-left (with the emphasis on centre) who have long given up the ghost of fighting for anything truly radical to improve the lot of the communities who entrust to them their hopes.

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You could sense lethargic complacency and careerism that was beginning to form over the Labour party in Scotland like a shroud. At ground level this was manifest in the failure to see what was happening in their own communities. They were blind to the gradual sense of resentment at being regarded as voting fodder to maintain the lifestyles of increasingly detached incumbents. This reached its nadir between 2011 and 2015 when the SNP first won a majority of Holyrood seats and then reduced Scottish Labour to a single representative at Westminster.

If they had recruited more people of talent rather than making the party a job creation vehicle for friends and family they might have noticed that the SNP under Alex Salmond was adopting increasingly sophisticated campaigning machinery using the vast opportunities presented by new technology.

Most importantly, though, Labour in Scotland had lost its work ethic: that willingness to embrace the old-fashioned techniques that will never lose their importance in modern elections: knocking doors and maintaining a visible and active presence at street level in all weathers and in all seasons.

A quarter of a century after Robertson’s complacent dismissal of Scottish independence we have arrived at a time and place in Scotland where Labour and their close political allies in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party have been rendered utterly irrelevant.

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We are at a stage now where two separate Scottish independence parties could together make a mockery of the concept that devolution would form an insurmountable barrier to outright independence. This became evident on Monday with the publication of a poll, conducted by Panelbase for Wings Over Scotland which revealed that almost 50% of SNP supporters would back a pro-independence party led by Alex Salmond if it were to compete for places on the Holyrood list system. And this is without any indication that such a move is even being considered by the former first minister.

I’m not privy to any information that this is being considered by Salmond, but I know enough to say that there isn’t room in this SNP for both him and Nicola Sturgeon. The tragedy of this will unfold in excruciating detail later in the year when senior party members are called to give evidence under oath for the inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of complaints against the former first minister. Alex Salmond was found to be completely innocent on all charges brought against him in the subsequent court case.

This not unreasonably can be seen as potentially dangerous for the independence movement. The sight and sound of two big independence personalities – now implacable enemies – knocking spots off each other is not an edifying or reassuring prospect. It could yet devour from the inside all the qualities that made the SNP attractive to former Labour voters. The revelation that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were fighting each other when we thought they were trying to run the country eventually sickened many of their supporters.

Salmond’s supporters within the SNP have hinted darkly at a conspiracy against their favourite and have been reviled for even suggesting such a thing. But it was clear that the jurors in his trial also believed something was afoot. They rejected the evidence of the former first minister’s nine accusers and found him to be innocent of all 13 charges brought against him.

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Yet, there is also an opportunity here for the SNP, no matter what unpleasantness emerges from the Salmond inquiries. If the government and opposition seats in Holyrood are occupied by two independence parties, then the case for a new referendum – at the very least – is compelling. Nor is there anything untoward or questionable about the SNP’s total annexation of Holyrood. If you can have three parties united in their devotion to the Union then you can have two parties united in opposition to it (I’m not counting the Greens, who have merely become a vanity project for their leader). More significantly, it provides a safe independence home for those many SNP members and voters who, in normal circumstances, might be tempted to quit the cause if the Salmond inquiry gets messy. How would they react if it were to emerge that several senior people had indeed conspired to put the man to whom several owe their swollen pensions in jail for a very long time? But if another party, led by Salmond, were to form and not threaten the SNP electorally, it would provide a good home.

Some on the Unionist side are licking their chops at the prospect of the SNP tearing itself apart during the Salmond inquiries. Yet if, after all the excursions and alarums, a Salmond-led party were to emerge it could give the Yes movement an electrifying jolt just when it needs it most. It might also inject some long overdue urgency into the project that is supposed to be binding them all.