Where has the time gone?  Is it just me, or do General Elections seem to come around quicker as you get older?  It is 2½ years since I last wrote that I thought the Labour Party’s biggest problem was not the Tories but the SNP, and I don’t see anything that has happened in the interval to make me change my mind.  In fact, things have only got worse for Labour.  Whereas 2½ years ago the SNP were merely an irritating block to Labour’s ambitions of achieving a majority government, nowadays the SNP are the kingmakers to Labour’s total destruction.

The Labour Party’s Doomsday Scenario is surprisingly close at hand, and crucial to deciding whether the touch-paper of Armageddon is actually ignited depends on one single variable: the extent of Jeremy Corbyn’s ambition to be PM.

Somewhere in Labour Central Office I am sure that Seumas Milne has a spreadsheet outlining, amongst many others, the same end-of-the-Left scenario but, for what it’s worth, this is my step-by-step logical progression of Labour’s potential self-destruction within the comparatively short timescale of the next five years.

• The General Election ends with no one party able to form a majority government.
• The Tory Party receive the greatest number of votes, but fail to form a coalition government.
• A cross-party coalition of Labour, Liberal, Independent and SNP MPs led by Jeremy Corbyn form a government; the SNP’s support conditional on an agreement to hold a second referendum on Scottish Independence.
• A second Scottish referendum returns in favour of Independence, leading to a break-up of the Union and the subsequent permanent withdrawal of 59 Scottish constituency votes from Westminster elections.
• Labour are left to fight every subsequent General Election without the support of Scottish voters, a situation that has historically denied them the ability to form a majority government.
• Boom! The Labour Doomsday Scenario.

It’s not too late.  The button to Armageddon need not be pushed, but it relies on Jeremy Corbyn suppressing his own personal ambitions to be PM and not pushing it.

To use the wartime language of recent House of Commons debates, Labour must surrender this election; surrender Brexit; surrender Jeremy Corbyn, for the sake of long-term survival.

I’ve said it before, but my message to Labour remains unchanged, win Bannockburn before attempting to win Marston Moor.

© Beery Sue

Beery Sue is available for consultation: “Seumas, Dominic, call me.”