If Scottish Labour wants to survive against the SNP, it needs to start listening to Tony Blair

Many in the Labour leadership will have gnashed what is left of the calcium stumps that were once their teeth when Blair conceded that Brexit has changed the case for Scottish Independence. But there is no point denying it – it patently, obviously has

Tony Blair commented that the case for Scottish Independence had changed since the Brexit vote (Getty)

A large part of the Scottish Labour Party’s free fall since the referendum has been a result of presenting itself as a party of glorious past, and failing to shape a narrative of the future.

Campaigning for “No” in the Better Together campaign, it invoked many of the grand old totems on the doorstep in an attempt to convince socially progressive Scots; the NHS, the BBC, devolution. It might therefore be considered trite to invoke yet another overused quote from a long gone prime minister, but there is something to it. Wilson was on to something when he said “The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.” When the party is not insurgent it is insular.

But it is words from a more recent, not-quite-extinct dinosaur which should give Scottish Labour exactly such a crusade. Some may consider Blair toxic, and still hold anger against him for the Iraq War. He might be perceived to be a preening lickspittle for the autocrats of the Middle East. He may well be considered sulphurous Satan himself – but goddammit, he’s good.

If even Nicola Sturgeon can agree that she’s “not his biggest fan, but there's a quality of analysis and argument in Blair's speech … that has been totally lacking from Labour to date” then Scottish Labour has permission to not just endorse, but take up, his call.

Many in the Labour leadership will have gnashed what is left of the calcium stumps that were once their teeth when Blair conceded that Brexit has changed the case for Scottish Independence. But there is no point denying it – it patently, obviously has. A major plank of the Unionist campaign was that independence would take Scotland out of Europe; yet within the UK, EU membership was secure. The exact opposite has transpired. It would nevertheless be a mistake to take Blair’s concession as a blow, instead of an opportunity.

It may well be that the democratic case for independence has shifted, but other aspects of the case have deteriorated. As the recent report from the Centre on Constitutional Change observed, successor status is a remote chance and as a result Scotland will have to fulfil the criteria for entry including reducing its 9.4 per cent deficit to 3 per cent under the Excessive Debt Procedure criteria.

Unlike in England or Wales, Scotland has an unambiguous mandate to negotiate keeping the UK as close to the EU as possible, with 60 per cent in favour. Kezia Dugdale recognised this when she instructed Labour MSPs to vote for the motion rejecting Brexit. But this is not enough; Scottish Labour should take up an explicit and vocal campaign to reverse Brexit.

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The benefits are rich. Instead of merely reacting to a nationalist agenda, it can cast itself once again, as it did so successfully in the 1980s, in an insurgent role agitating for change; standing up to an arrogant Tory government deaf to Scotland’s interests; open an effective flank of attack against Ruth Davidson in the inter-opposition struggle for a hegemony of Unionist voters and, crucially, provide a uniting narrative for internationalism that its members can back with real enthusiasm. A moral crusade, one might say.

Of course, there are objections. Don’t Scottish Labour already have a counter-narrative to the nationalist argument in the form of a constitutional convention looking towards federalism? That’s great for government, but as a campaigning platform arguing for a convention is not exactly going to set the heather alight, and more importantly, it needs a message on Europe which frames the whole discussion.

Yet, beyond controlling the narrative, there is an even more compelling reason for taking up a campaign against Brexit. If leaving is indeed inevitable, there is reason to believe that Open Britain’s direction will allow us to shape the UK’s relationship to Europe; maintaining high immigration, trade deals and what not. The Brexit settlement itself will be central to any future independence campaign. It is the SNP’s mandate to attack Brexit; the more defensible that settlement is to the interests of Scotland, the weaker their basis for a new campaign becomes.

The party’s slogan for its Perth conference is “Together We’re Stronger”, deliberately invoking the Better Together campaign. This attempt to point to the past to reassure voters about its credentials risks falling into the same old trap of being a party without its mind on the future if it does not address the Europe question.

All politics will orbit a Brexit sun, even Indyref2 – Scottish Labour must not travel to the long dead planet of a 2014 referendum. It must boldly go “forwards, not backwards”, as a former prime minister once said.