AS I write this, people are reeling from another terror attack. It is difficult to know what to say when shock and raw emotion dominate your thoughts. It’s hard to imagine the grief and suffering of those directly affected and it seems trite to offer the only thing we can offer – condolences. I have utter respect for and empathy with those whose Saturday night was ended by brutality.

In situations like this, there is pressure to put politics aside.

I confess I feel overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness and wonder whether politics is all that important in the grand scheme of things. There was talk of postponing the election, an event that appears to have provided a focus for minds hell-bent on maximum carnage. That is why democracy should not be sacrificed. And why we must continue to debate the issues that confront us in these times.

I can’t add much more to what I said in my column last week about Manchester. The issues underlying the latest atrocity in London are the same. And there will still be unscrupulous politicians who will seek to exploit people’s hurt and fear. Theresa May will find the time to put herself in front of the media again, trying to persuade us that only the Tories are strong and stable enough to chart the way through these horrific times. But what we’ve seen from her in the three weeks since she called a shock General Election should make us draw the exact opposite conclusion. The Prime Minister, rather than being strong and stable, has shown us she does not have any bottle.

She has run scared of her opponents, the media and voters and reduced a 25-point lead in the polls to just three points.

Even if she returns to 10 Downing Street, she is damaged goods. After less than a year in office, she looks like she’s already on her way out. The EU negotiators will have her for breakfast and Nicola Sturgeon must be pretty confident that May’s resistance to an independence referendum will soon crumble – especially if the Scottish Tories fail to gain more than a handful of seats on Thursday.

It has also become clear that Jeremy Corbyn’s British Labour and Kezia Dugdale’s Scottish Labour are two different parties in all but name. One offers hope, the other whips up fear. One wants change, the other dreads change. One believes in democracy, the other fears the people. While Corbyn’s party fights the Tories, Dugdale’s party fights independence. Corbyn has inspired millions, including many in Scotland, in the way that Bernie Sanders did during the US presidential primaries. He may not ooze charisma, but Corbyn comes across as honest, principled and courageous. He has evoked that spirit of radicalism that galvanised young people to get involved in the Yes campaign in 2014.

Yet he remains a hate figure to much of the Labour Party. We know that 80 per cent of his own MPs refused to support him as leader. They said he wasn’t up to the job. In a newspaper interview three months ago, Peter Mandelson spelled out his loathing for Corbyn: “I work every single day in some small way to bring forward the end of his tenure in office. Something, however small it may be – an email, a phone call or a meeting I convene – every day I try to do something to save the Labour Party from his leadership.”

I don’t wish to personally insult Kezia Dugdale, who seems to me like a decent human being, but she is the figurehead of a Labour machine in Scotland that is closer to Mandelson than to Corbyn.

She is as conservative as Corbyn is progressive. Only last year, she said Corbyn’s chances of winning a General Election were “slim to non-existent”.

Dugdale’s right-hand man Alan Roden, her communications director, was the Scottish Daily Mail’s political editor throughout the last independence referendum campaign, and ran one virulent front-page rant after another about evil cybernats and the Armageddon that would befall Scotland in the event of a Yes vote. Every time I hear a Labour candidate interviewed on radio or TV, I hear vicious contempt towards that half of the population – including the majority of trade union members – that wants Scotland to move to full national equality. In England, every vote for Labour will be counted as a vote for radical change. In Scotland, every single vote for Labour will be counted as a vote against radical change.

Preservation of the UK state is not just an incidental Scottish Labour policy. It’s taken over the heart and soul of Scottish Labour. Corbyn’s banner may be deepest scarlet, but Scottish Labour’s flag is red, white and blue. On the one issue over which they have any influence, they are on the side of the Tories. Most Scottish Labour politicians have more in common with Ruth Davidson than with Jeremy Corbyn.

Maybe, I’m missing something. If there is a Scottish Labour candidate standing in this election who supports Corbyn’s relaxed attitude towards a second independence referendum, then please let me know. I’ll be happy to publicise it on social media before the election.

Otherwise, we have to assume they’re on the same side as the Tories, and that means they don’t deserve a single vote from that half of the population who would rather live in an independent Scotland moving in a progressive left-wing direction than in a Tory-run fortress UK that locks out foreigners, slashes taxes for the rich, glories in weapons of mass destruction and wages war on trade unionists and the poor.

On Friday, I hope we will be looking at an election result that enables the formation of a new progressive alliance across the UK, led by Corbyn and with the support of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. That won’t kill independence, because the case for Scotland taking control over its own destiny remains rock solid, whoever is in 10 Downing Street. Some of the arguments may have to be refined, but the substance of the case remains.

Unfortunately, that’s still an unlikely outcome. Despite their disastrous campaign, the Tories are still the clear bookies' favourites to win. For Scotland, the doomsday scenario would be another Tory victory and a serious fall in the pro-independence vote to less than 40 per cent. That could delay any future referendum for a number of years, leaving us at the mercy of the Tory austerity for goodness knows how long.

Every vote for independence counts. So, all the best to Jeremy Corbyn in England. But Unionist Labour in Scotland? To borrow their own slogan: No Thanks!