FIRST, praise where it’s due. Three Labour MSPs – Neil Finlay, Pauline McNeill and Claudia Beamish were among the cross-party group who signed a letter organised by Green MSP Ross Greer in defence of Catalonia’s right to self-determination. So, members of five of the Scottish Parliament’s political parties have sided with the forces of progressive democracy against repression. No prizes for guessing the odd one out.

But where was the left-wing UK Labour leadership as the fifth largest country in the European Union sent in armed police to stop millions of ordinary Catalans marking a cross on a ballot paper? As I write, on Sunday afternoon, Jeremy Corbyn has finally broken his silence to tweet a condemnation of police violence. As yet, he has not defended the right of the Catalan people to decide their own future.

Jeremy Corbyn, in particular, has a proud record of standing up strongly for democracy and national rights, from Palestine to Ireland, from East Timor to South Africa, from Kurdistan to South Africa. So, why not Catalonia?

Maybe by the time you’re reading this column, Corbyn, with the polls closing, will have, belatedly, stood up for the right to decide in Catalonia. But even so, it’s clear that London Labour has a major problem with the mass movement in Catalonia, supported by the same kind of people that have turned Jeremy Corbyn into a political superstar in England.

It’s not necessary to have a degree in political science to work out why London Labour have so far failed to add Catalonia to the list of aspiring independent nations it is prepared to stand up for.

On so many issues, Corbyn has been a gale-force blast of fresh air after the decades of middle-of-the road platitudes from Labour leaders. Some of his policies have, as we all know, already either been implemented or planned in Scotland, from free tuition fees to free prescription charges and rail public ownership.

Others are more far-reaching. Imposing rent controls; building a million council houses; bringing back into the public sector billions of pounds of PFI projects; ending zero hours contracts; renationalising electricity, rail and water (which was never privatised in Scotland).

The Scottish Government is, of course, constrained by the limits of devolution. But even compared to its 2014 White Paper on independence, Corbyn’s programme throws down a more ambitious challenge to inequality and social injustice.

Let’s not forget, however, that UK Labour was rammed to the left by the Yes movement in Scotland, which turned the old politics upside down and inside out. And hopefully the SNP in turn will learn from the success of Corbyn the power of radical left-wing politics to inspire and mobilise young people.

On two major issues though – both interconnected – Labour’s red flag turns royal blue. On Trident, the Corbynistas have dismally failed to fight and win the case for getting rid of nuclear missiles from the Clyde, which have the destructive power to wipe out 150 million people. Does anyone imagine for a moment that if there was a proposal to relocate these missiles to within 25 miles of Central London that Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would not be leading mass demonstrations on the streets and creating mayhem in Westminster?

And then there is the giant rock upon which Scottish Labour almost perished in 2014. Scottish independence. The reason why Jeremy Corbyn has buried his head in the sand over Catalonia these past few days and weeks.

When I heard the Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry declare that “there is no nat we can’t bin” at Labour’s conference last week, I was reminded of the bluster and bravado of Jim Murphy. Such talk of an SNP wipe-out might get rapturous applause at a Labour conference, but a bit more humility would be more fitting for a party which managed to remain stuck in third behind the Tories in this year’s General Election.

Even worse was the breath-taking dishonesty and hypocrisy of Scottish Labour’s Johanna Baxter who launched an extraordinary attack on the SNP-led Glasgow City Council, accusing it of “denying women the equal pay they deserve”, before adding “and that is why we need a Labour government”.

Just a few days later, it was revealed that under the previous Labour regime, the council spent millions on legal fees over 10 years “denying women the equal pay they deserve”, while saddling the new administration with a colossal £500 million bill – 40 per cent of its total annual budget. Johanna — an arch public opponent of Corbyn during the second Labour leadership contest – was no doubt trying to ingratiate herself to the predominantly left-wing conference. But if Labour politicians seriously believe they can oust the SNP by rewriting their own history, they are living in Disneyland.

I’d like to see a strong left-wing opposition to the SNP in Holyrood. If Labour has ambitions to play that role, then they’ll have to start by telling the honest, unvarnished truth about their own track record, before going on to apologise to their legions of ex-voters in Scotland for their dismal decades of betrayal, culminating in their shocking performance during the 2014 referendum campaign.

Without honesty the party has no credibility. Why should anyone believe that Labour will ever carry out its laudable programme of reforms when in power, when its strategy in Scotland appears to be to persist in pulling the wool over our eyes?

When the Thatcher and Major governments imposed draconian reductions to council budgets in 1980s and 1990s, Labour councils railroaded through closures of schools, community centres and sport centres, cut pay and implemented mass redundancies. And when the Tories came back for more, Labour duly obliged, year after year.

And when the SNP, along with along with smaller socialist organisations and community groups, backed the Poll Tax mass non-payment campaign, Labour councils sent out the sheriff officers to force their way into the homes of tens of thousands of low income households and attempted to sell off their possessions.

And even after devolution – during the boom years when budgets were growing year-on-year – the Labour-led Scottish Executive attacked free prescriptions, opposed expansion of free school meals, fought to keep the barbaric debt recovery system known as warrant sales, closed schools, fought tooth and and nail to prevent women achieving equal pay, and drove forward large-scale privatisation in health and education through the now discredited PFI scheme, which enriched big business at the expense of working people.

Until Labour comes clean about its own failures and changes direction on independence – even if only to a more neutral position – it will remain a toxic brand in Scotland for a long time to come.

Oh! Jeremy Corbyn, when will you stand up for national minorities closer to home?