I SPENT most of my adult life living in a Scotland politically dominated by the Labour Party. They routinely sent more MPs to Westminster than any other party and had control of most local councils. There was a high price to pay for all those years.

It was the Labour Party which gave us devolution, albeit as part of a plot to undermine support for Scottish independence. It was Labour who won the first Scottish parliamentary election and the first First Minister was Labour veteran Donald Dewar.

But once the new parliament was established it quickly became apparent that Labour had no clue what to do with it.

Labour’s lack of ambition and imagination proved crippling for the first few years of the reconvened parliament, as the party operated within a set of self-imposed restrictions, so desperate was it not to upset its London masters or challenge the established order of things.

Labour’s spectacular fall from grace was down to an upsurge in support for the SNP, which put it into government. Personally, I had a few reservations about the permanence of this changing of the guard.

Scotland’s relationship with Labour was deep-rooted and I feared it could at some point flower again.

Recent polls suggest that this is now the case. The most recent shows Labour neck and neck with the SNP, both polling 35% support.

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I’m not convinced that this state of affairs will be replicated at the actual poll itself. There are too many mixed messages within the figures. What are we to take, for example, from the fact that support for independence remains relatively steady between 44 and 50% while support for the SNP is dropping?

Is it reasonable to assume some independence supporters are withdrawing their allegiance from the SNP and switching to Labour? Why would they do that? It’s not as if the constitutional question is slipping from the public debate.

But even if the drop in the SNP’s support and the rise in Labour’s are being exaggerated it’s hard to deny that Labour is becoming more popular north of the Border and it would be risky to take a relaxed view of this. We don’t want to sleepwalk into a situation which holds serious dangers.

So here are five reasons why a good result for Labour at the next UK General Election would be disastrous for Scotland:

1: An increased Labour vote would dent the campaign for independence.

Labour’s electoral downfall in Scotland can be traced back to its decision to share a platform with the Tories in the Better Together campaign to save the Union in 2014.

Although the 2014 referendum recorded a vote against independence, it changed Scotland forever. Can you imagine the celebrations if Scotland had voted to become independent? There were no such outbursts of joy after the No vote. The streets that morning seemed empty and grey. It was as if those who had decided to stick with the Union either decided to keep quiet about it or were embarrassed by their refusal to grasp the opportunity.

Almost immediately Labour reaped the result from standing shoulder to shoulder with the party, which should have been its arch-enemy. How else can you explain the SNP triumph in the 2015 General Election? The party was now seen as Scotland’s champion and Labour as the craven puppets of Westminster.

But even some independence supporters are arguing that because the SNP have not yet delivered us into the promised land it somehow deserves a bloody nose to encourage it to refocus its efforts in that direction.

They are wrong. It would be interpreted as a message from the Scottish voters that independence was low on their list of priorities. How much of the pro-Union media would devote space to pointing out opinion polls showing the exact opposite? The anti-indy narrative would have been set.

There is absolutely no indication that Labour is prepared to dilute in any way its opposition to both independence itself and to even putting the question to Scottish voters through another referendum.

It is true that a very few Scottish Labour voices have suggested there are circumstances under which they MIGHT be prepared to vote yes. When former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale did exactly that recently she was following in the footsteps of one of her predecessors Henry McLeish, who has flirted with independence for years without ever crossing the line.

There are precious few signs that these former leaders will express unequivocal support for independence and even fewer for the likelihood that, even if they did so, their party would take a blind bit of notice.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has made it clear that he opposes independence now and forever. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has taken the same line and would not be allowed to deviate in any way. Buoyed by a good General Election result the party would double down on its support for the Union and would give even greater priority to its mission to thwart any moves towards indyref2.

2: Labour has no intention of doing anything to reduce the terrible harm Tory policies are inflicting.

Starmer’s mantra is not to commit to spending money that “the country can’t afford”. He has expressly ruled out following through on a whole range of policies to which he had previously committed. Bringing public services into public ownership? Labour has ruled out nationalising the big six energy companies, or indeed any more public services.

Standing up for trade union rights? That’s OK as long as it doesn’t involve standing with striking workers on picket lines. If you’re a Labour minister, that could get you sacked.

Dumping university tuition fees? You know, like Scotland has done. Starmer said tuition fees were a goner during his campaign to become leader. He ditched that commitment in May this year. He’s also “moved on” from commitments to scrap the immoral and unjust two-child benefits cap, despite support for its removal from virtually every senior Labour figure in Scotland.

And let’s not even talk about Brexit. On second thoughts … let’s.

3: Labour no longer has any plans to ditch Brexit and rejoin the EU.

Leaving the EU has been an unmitigated disaster and nowhere has the impact been more keenly felt than in Scotland.

Brexit has slashed our imports. It has caused severe shortages of seasonal workers in the hospitality and agricultural sectors. Hotels and restaurants are having to impose restricted opening times because they simply can’t find the staff.

The Scottish Government estimates that Brexit has cost this country £3.5 billion in public revenues because it has reduced the UK’s GDP by 4% in the long run.

But Starmer has ruled out taking Britain back into either the single market or the customs union. Brexit itself isn’t the problem, says the Labour leader. It’s all the Tories’ fault for “mismanaging” the process.

It can’t be stated too often that Scotland voted AGAINST Brexit, a fact completely ignored in Labour’s recent lovebombing campaign to win back Scottish voters.

4: Labour wants Scotland’s water.

We’re not supposed to mention the shitshow Westminster made of Scotland’s oil. Every country which discovered oil prospered. Scotland’s oil was to pay for Margaret Thatcher’s dole queues.

Labour tried to hide the full extent of Scotland’s oil revenues in order to dampen enthusiasm for independence. Fast forward to 2014 and we were warned of the dangers of building an independent Scotland’s economy on oil revenues, which were in any case running out.

Today, however, revenues from Scotland’s oil are significant but overshadowed by the need for more sustainable sources of energy. That’s actually good news for Scotland, which has more renewable energy sources than anywhere else in the UK and is a world leader in the field.

However Labour want to turn this into a bonanza for the UK rather than for Scotland itself (again). Starmer chose a visit to Scotland in June to unveil Labour’s “mission to cut bills, create jobs and provide energy security for Britain” using Scotland’s renewable energy.

He described that energy as “the new foundation for British prosperity”. We have heard this before. But the oil revenues did not usher in “British prosperity”. They were squandered and Scotland was ignored. Now Labour’s leader is proudly boasting that he will make sure that “British needs” will take priority again.

5: Scottish Labour is nothing but a branch office.

That claim hit the headlines when it was made by an angry Johann Lamont when she resigned as party leader back in October 2014. Of course party leaders rushed to dismiss it but since then all the evidence suggests Lamont hit the nail on the head.

Nothing proves the accuracy of her criticism as clearly as Starmer’s retreat from the vow to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

Labour’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar and a stream of senior Labour figures in Scotland had spoken passionately in favour of the scrapping. But they had to watch Starmer flatly contradict their views on a visit to Edinburgh.

Even more shamefully Sarwar had to tie himself in knots trying to deny the evidence of our own eyes and convince us that he and Starmer were on the same page.

And just for good measure, the Labour leader went on to criticise gender reforms which his Scottish MSPs had voted for when they were put before Holyrood.

This is a party which consistently refuses to allow the Scottish people a say in their own future and overrules decisions taken democratically by its own members north of the Border. Do they really deserve our votes in any imaginable future election?