IN principle, this should be a good election for Labour to win.

In contrast, it can very easily be argued that the elections in both 2017 and 2019 did not provide great opportunities for Labour. The first was because whoever won that election had to face the reality of delivering the poisoned chalice of Brexit. 

In 2019, although no one knew it at the time, Covid presented the winner with a second poisoned chalice. There can be no doubt that the Tories failed every test they faced, but it was also true that they had to play difficult hands on both occasions.

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The 2024 General Election is quite different. There is no doubt that the economy is in a mess, but as the inevitable winner of this election, Labour does have the golden opportunity to suggest, as the Tories did in 2010, that their predecessors were entirely responsible for this, whether that is true or not.

A mess of this sort also presents a winning party with real opportunity. Presuming that Labour does not make things any worse (which possibility cannot be ruled out at present, given the absurd  economic policies that Rachel Reeves has imposed on her party) the claim that "things can only get better" should almost certainly be true during the next parliament. It would require dogmatic foolishness to prevent that happening, although Labour would appear to be possessed of plenty of that. If only it dropped its right-wing economics Labour should be a dead-cert to keep its majority in 2029.

I am not convinced that it will, though. Partly that’s due to its dedication to the economics of austerity, of which people have long grown tired. 

There are other issues as well. For example, the far right is undoubtedly increasing in popularity, reflecting a broader move in that direction across Europe. Labour has to address the problems of alienation, felt most strongly outside cities, if it is to have any hope of reversing this trend. So far it has no policies that might achieve that goal. Things are not looking good for it on that issue, then. 

In Scotland, the problems for Labour are even more apparent. The SNP might have created much of its own present misfortune, much as the Tories have also done, but whatever the Labour leadership might think, that has not created deep-seated support for what Labour is planning. In fact, recent opinion polls suggest that Keir Starmer is now somewhat more unpopular as a potential prime minister than Jeremy Corbyn was in 2017. He is, in fact, likely to be the most unpopular person to assume the job of prime minister ever if he is elected to it in a week’s time.

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I think that this is reflected in voting intentions in Scotland. People might be willing to vote Labour to get rid of the Tories this time, and give the SNP a miss whilst doing so. But, quite crucially, there is no indication that pro-independence sentiment is waning. Far from it, in fact. 

And that gives Labour a massive problem. Labour has no choice but persuade people that it is serious about solving the problems Scotland faces in the next two years, or the SNP will storm back into office in Holyrood in 2026 and Labour will lose badly across the whole of Scotland in 2029. 

If that happens, even if Labour hangs on to office at that time – and I see no reason to guarantee that it will – it will have to face the fact that Scotland will then have rejected both Labour and the Tories. To refuse another independence referendum would, in that case, be very hard indeed. 

Labour is going to win next week. But that win could break it just as much as the Tories have now been broken. And if that happens the Union really should be over.