Anybody would think that New Labour is frightened of something. Like getting its arse seriously kicked in the Scottish Assembly elections next year, for instance.

It was interesting to hear Uncle Joe describe the SNP as 'not fit for purpose'. That's exactly the way he described the Immigration Service in May this year. Obviously it's the insult du jour.

But Reid's logic is seriously flawed. Of course an SNP-led Scottish Assembly will push for Scottish independence. Why? Precisely because Scottish independence is actually the SNP's 'purpose', John. And it wants to show it is fit for it. Natch.

The attitude of the British left on this issue has long been divided. Some argue Scottish independence would weaken the historically constituted unity of the British working class. Certain groups, for instance, provocatively brand the Scottish Socialist Party 'national socialist' for its pro-independence stand. Others counter that independence would weaken the historically constituted unity of the British state ... possibly terminally.

Personally, I have never had a problem with the idea. I support the right of nations to self determination, as championed by politicians as diverse as Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson.

Usually an analogy is drawn with divorce. Just because the left supports the right of married couples to split if either one of them wants that, that doesn't mean it positively advocates divorce in any given marriage.

But on the latest polling evidence, a majority of both Scots and English people now favour Scottish independence. If the population of Scotland votes in an SNP-led Assembly next year, they will be making their opinion all the more clear.

The reasons why the Scottish National Party are so often derided as Tartan Tories continue to escape me. I’ve always found it more analytically useful to consider them as some species of social democrats.

Let’s put it like this: since Alex Salmond took over at Holyrood last May, I have read nothing to suggest that that the SNP are to the right of the outgoing New Labour-Lib Dem coalition.

The policies currently on offer at their website are mostly the usual motherhood and apple pie stuff served up by all mainstream parties these days, pledging ‘fairer this’ and ‘safer that’.

Even so, it also includes radical-sounding promises to pull Scottish troops out of Iraq and British nuclear weapons out of Scotland.

However, the most distinctive SNP policy is undoubtedly independence for Scotland. In around two weeks’ time, Salmond will publish a white paper outlining plans for a referendum on Scottish independence.

This is not a demand that either a Labour or a Conservative government at Westminster would ever concede. Without Scottish seats, Labour would never form a UK-wide government ever again.

And while you’d think that would be reason enough for the Tories to sanction the divorce, its unionist tradition all but rules that out.

But it is precisely the sort of policy you’d expect the left in England and Wales to favour strongly. Remember that in Scotland, there is both a class dimension to the national question and a national dimension to class politics. Workers and young people tend to be the most in favour of independence.

Yet majority opinion among socialists south of the border is that Scottish independence would ‘break up the historically constituted unity of the British working class’. That’s true, if somewhat abstract.

But it would also break up the historically constituted unity of the British state and give Europe another country with a social democratic centre of political gravity. Much as I’ll hate to live in the permanent Tory fiefdom that would result here, that would be a concrete gain.

I awoke to hear that the seat - held by Labour or the far left for 80 years - had fallen to the Scottish National Party on a 22.5% swing.

Just for once, that early morning emptiness in my stomach resulted not from urgent need for a bowl of organic muesli drenched in soya milk, but the realisation that the Tories are now almost certain to form the next two or three governments, minimum.

If a stronghold like Glasgow East can topple that easily, the outlook for 2010 is surely a Labour defeat of 1931 proportions. Those who need a recap of the relevant history could do no better than turn to a book by Ralph Miliband - hey, whatever became of his two boys? - that tells how a governing party was reduced to a rump of just 46 MPs.

Eventually Labour recovered, of course. Miliband notes on page 192 of Parliamentary Socialism: ''Though powerless in parliament, Labour had retained massive support in the country, most of it, obviously, from within the ranks of the organised working class.'

The difference between now and then is that in many constituencies Labour exists largely on paper and working class organisation is at its weakest since the second world war. In short, Labour as we know it may never recover from the coming meltdown.

Many on the left don't grasp just how calamitous the coming decade could prove. I've spoken to revolutionary defeatists within Labour who believe that a spell in opposition will strengthen the small socialists layer that remains.

Doubtless others will maintain that the smack of firm Tory government will dispel illusions in reformism, providing the most propitious circumstances for the formation of a new workers' party, or whatever other nonsense they picked up at last weekend's cadre school.

Unfortunately, that is not the most likely trajectory. The British far left - and I'm not excluding the Scottish comrades from this criticism - remains organically incapable of serious politics. It's worth noting that the combined Scottish Socialist Party/Solidarity vote last night was enough to have secured fourth place ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Yet that division is not going to be overcome rapidly, even though it is devoid of real policy substance.

Instead, we are likely to see social democracy draped in the saltire establish itself as the party of choice for the Scottish working class, something that alone will be enough to ensure we never get another Labour government again, while the British National Party slugs it out with depoliticisation south of the border.

Should Brown go? I don't think that would make much difference. All of the politicians with a realistic shot of becoming Labour leader are indelibly linked to the ancien regime; swapping one New Labourite in a dark suit for another isn't going to undo the damage New Labourism has wrought.

Blog posts like this should ideally end up outlined the way out. This one will not, largely because I do not see one. I'd just like to urge readers to look at the jubilation evident on the face of last night's SNP victor John Mason - pictured - and reflect.