IT’S appropriate that MPs were debating the Assisted Dying Bill on Friday, 24 hours before Labour committed political suicide and elected Jeremy Corbyn.
The 12 months since last year’s independence referendum have been full of political surprises but the veteran left winger’s elevation surely ranks as the greatest so far.
When he takes his seat on the frontbench for the first time in his career on Monday Corbyn can rely on a big welcome from MPs on every side but his own.
The Tories will be braying at the thought of his inevitably hopeless reign giving them free rein for the next five years.
They ought to be careful what they wish for though. With no credible opposition, the backbenches will lose what little discipline they have and the Government will face headaches courtesy of its own headbangers.
Why SNP MPs are so pro-Corbyn is more curious.
Many like him because his views chime with their own. He is anti-Trident and opposed to the Government’s austerity measures.
Many in the SNP put their showing at the General Election down to their anti-austerity message.
Mhairi Black went as far as to say in her maiden and so far only speech that nationalism had “nothing to do with what happened in Scotland”.
If that is so then surely May’s SNP voters will flock back to a left-wing Labour.
For what is the point in voting for an SNP anti-austerity candidate rather than a Labour anti-austerity candidate who might actually be able to do something about it?
Bear in mind the SNP can win every seat in Scotland, and that is now a genuine possibility not just a figure of speech, but they still could not form a government at Westminster and implement any policies.
One way or another Black’s thesis is about to be put to the test now Corbyn leads the opposition. The more strategic thinkers in the SNP and the party is not short of them trying to plot a course to another independence referendum with a different result think Corbyn could be good for their cause.
One of their number welcomed his victory yesterday on the basis that “he knows nothing about Scotland”.
Corbyn has certainly not been vocal on the constitution though he has said a second independence referendum would not be credible.
Yesterday’s coronation was only the second time he’s met Kezia Dugdale, leader of Scottish Labour.
The nationalists hope Corbyn continues to take little interest in his Scottish branch office and the management there will remain as chaotic as it has been for the last few years.
Given a Corbyn-led Labour party is extremely unlikely to win a General Election and appears to have limited interest in achieving that there’s good reason to think rebuilding the Scottish operation will not be a priority for Corbyn in the way it might have been for Scots-born Yvette
Cooper who made a point of beginning her leadership campaign north of the Border.
That would give the SNP a clear run in Holyrood to look at arranging a second independence referendum.
For all parties and politicians have a shelf life, even the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon.
They have a majority in Holyrood now and they probably will again after next May but come the next election the electoral system designed to prevent such an outcome may come back into play.
That leaves a window of five years to cash in Sturgeon’s popularity at the polls in an independence vote.
A cause boosted by the prospect of years of Tory government while Labour wander the wilderness.
With Labour set to descend into factions, infighting and incompetence under Corbyn, the SNP can get to work jemmying that window open.
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