REMEMBER during the independence referendum, when all these big beasts from Westminster kept telling silly wee Scotland that we needed the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom?

Well here we are, in the middle of the biggest self-inflicted crisis since Baron Frankenstein decided to make a monster, with the predictable result that angry townspeople are getting out the torches and pitchforks, and what do we discover? Those broad shoulders of the United Kingdom don’t have a head on them. Chickens can keep running about after decapitation because they’ve got a bundle of nerve cells in their spinal columns, which means that a headless chicken has got more of a functioning neural system than the Government of the United Kingdom.

No one in the Conservative party has the slightest idea about what to do next now that their jolly jape of a referendum as a proxy for a leadership contest has taken the UK out of the EU, broken the United Kingdom, put a bomb under the Irish Peace Process, set off an ugly spate of racist incidents throughout England, and caused a chasm in public opinion deeper and wider than the Grand Canyon. The Leave campaign is denying all the claims that it was making just a few days ago. £350 million? Oh no, we never said we’d invest it in the NHS. Stirring up racism? How very dare you suggest we did any such thing. Losing the UK’s AAA credit rating? Eh, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Tories are only sure of two things now, firstly that a Remain vote would have made Scottish independence far more difficult, and that now there’s a Leave vote that’s also made Scottish independence far more difficult. Secondly, they are quite certain that Scotland shouldn’t have another independence referendum, because that would be divisive. Well they know a lot about creating divisiveness, don’t they? Although apparently not so much about irony, and there was us thinking that irony was supposed to be a British value.

But don’t panic, Number 10 has announced that Oliver Letwin is in charge of Brexit preparations for the time being. Letwin’s career is littered with more embarrassing gaffes than Prince Philip’s. That’s the Oliver Letwin that left a pile of sensitive Government papers in a bin in a park. All the EU needs to do to discover the UK’s negotiating position is keep an eye on rubbish collections in the Whitehall area.

The Conservatives are more interested in their leadership contest than they are in the fate of the country. They’re happy to hold an entire continent hostage to the decisions of the Parliamentary Conservative party and Boris Johnson’s career. On Sky News over the weekend political editor Faisal Islam reported that Boris’s leave campaign has no plan at all about what to do over the coming months. They don’t know what sort of Brexit they want, they don’t know how to go about getting it once they do decide, and they seem to think that they’ll be able to prevent the free movement of European Union citizens into the UK while preserving the right of British citizens to live and work in Europe. That’s the Tory legacy, the result of their implacable belief that the UK is a special little snowflake to which normal rules don’t apply. The Conservatives have created a bigger political vacuum than the empty space between Boris’s ears.

There is no Government: there is no official opposition either. We don’t have a Labour shadow cabinet anymore. All that’s left is a broken breakfast tray bearing nothing but the stale toast of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Members of the shadow cabinet have been dropping off more quickly than attendees at the Scottish Tory party conference. Corbyn is refusing to resign, although he’s now leading a party that is refusing to be led by him. The Blairites are in open revolt, although to be honest they were pretty revolting to begin with.

The reason they have mounted their attempt to oust Corbyn just now isn’t because they’re afraid he can’t win an election. With a shattered Conservative party in meltdown, the Blairites are afraid that he can. That they’re using a time of national crisis to mount a leadership coup tells you all you need to know about their concern for the national interest. One after another they make a sad-eyed press statement announcing their resignation, saying: “I deeply regret standing down from the Shadow Cabinet and am coordinating my resignation with my colleagues in order to inflict the maximum possible damage.”

THEIR sudden haste to blame Corbyn for the Brexit may or may not be related to the impending publication of the Chilcot report after a delay of many years, although it’s quite likely that the report will be delayed even longer as Chilcot seems to be the guy who’s going to be put in charge of Brexit negotiations.

Labour has no Shadow Scottish Secretary now, following the resignation of Ian Murray. Since the pool of Scottish Labour MPs consists of Ian Murray in a bathtub with a Union Jack rubber duck, Corbyn’s going to have a hard time replacing him. The truth is, they probably don’t need to bother. Scotland has no need for the parliamentary Labour party, just as we have no need for the Tories.

Both the main parties in the United Kingdom are as rudderless and adrift as Ian’s rubber duck. That the only functioning government in the UK right now is the one that wants to remain in the EU and leave the UK tells you all you need to know about the depth of the pile of doggy-doo Britain is in. It reaches all the way down into the black heart of Hell, or of Nigel Farage – much the same thing. Britain has become an ugly and inward-looking place. Scotland needs to escape.

Events are happening so quickly it’s difficult to keep up. Between the time this article is written and it is published, Scotland could very well be independent already. All over the land former No voters have looked upon the mess that the United Kingdom has turned into, and decided we’re really not better together with dysfunction. And to their credit, most Yes voters have been remarkably restrained with the I-told-you-sos. We are welcoming them into the fold, all of us want what’s best for Scotland, a Scotland that’s international, outward looking, and accepting of migrants and our European friends and allies.

Irrespective of our political affiliations we all agree with Angus Robertson’s statement in the House of Commons on Monday: “We have no intention whatsoever of seeing Scotland taken out of the EU.” We’re going to keep the dream of that European, social democratic tolerant Scotland alive , and we’re going to make it a reality. Yesterday in the European Parliament the SNP MEP Alyn Smith made an impassioned plea for Scotland to remain in the EU, and received a standing ovation. Scotland has allies. We are not alone.

The days when England ordered and Scotland meekly followed are over. Westminster better get used to it.