THE statement from Nottingham East Constituency Labour Party managed to convey a measure of respect and, at the same time, calm fury. It was released in response to the announcement the previous day that their local MP, Chris Leslie, had resigned from the Labour Party and had joined a breakaway group of centrists.

“Constituents in Nottingham East voted in great numbers to be represented by a Labour MP and we expect Chris to respect that and resign. We look forward to contesting the seat in a by-election with a Labour candidate who is committed to our city and residents.

“For some time we’ve been expressing our concerns about Chris Leslie’s work in the constituency and the level of support he has offered for local people. Many members have signed an open letter, asking him to reflect upon his commitment to the constituency, given the lack of surgeries and engagement with local people and issues.”

An almost identical statement could have been written about many of Scotland’s Labour contingent prior to 2015 when they were voted out of those positions which lately they had come to view as sinecures. To paraphrase the Nottingham East letter, for some time Scottish Labour voters too had been expressing our concern about their work in the constituency and the level of support they had offered for local people.

Similarly there had been questions asked about their engagement with local people and issues. As one SNP activist told me at the 2015 count as Glasgow’s Labour MPs began to fall like skittles: “They had grown accustomed at elections to swanning in at the last minute fully expecting to gain the usual votes by making a few cursory visits here and there.”

Labour in Scotland at last paid a heavy price for their laziness, arrogance and complacency. That many of them had also gleefully shared platforms with the political enemies of the people they had been tasked to represent during the independence referendum didn’t help their cause either. They had chosen instead to wrap themselves in the Union Jack, arrogantly impervious to the shifting plates in the ground beneath them. Yet how could it have been otherwise when so many of them were by then unable to recognise their own backyards far less sense what was happening in them?

Tragically, the party in Scotland has continued down this road with predictable results. Less than 10 years after its last spell in government they are now in third place in the polls with no prospect of this changing either at the next Westminster or Holyrood elections.

Following the resignation of his former colleagues, one Labour MSP told me last night: “They’re like the seven dwarves and they’re all fighting over who gets to play Dopey. It’s an appalling state of affairs.”

Their resignations must have been greeted with cheers among Theresa May’s inner circle. Having suffered yet another humiliating defeat in the House of Commons (she has now lost more home games than

St Mirren) she was humbled further by EU negotiators and by one of her own tired and emotional advisers who revealed that, effectively there are no negotiations happening at all and that, to all intents and purposes, she is running down the clock. This was followed by the decision of Honda, the Japanese car manufacturer, to shut its Swindon plant with the loss of 3500 jobs.

The BBC’s man in Japan revealed yesterday morning his sources had warned him to expect other Japanese firms to walk away from the UK in the wake of this chaotic Brexit.

Those Leave supporters who still fondly believe that this is a Millennium Bug situation and that predictions of economic meltdown are merely Project Fear myths are now being acquainted with reality and Labour’s seven dwarves are now riding to May’s rescue.

She now knows that even if she were to call a snap election following a no-deal Brexit any fears of a Labour victory have now effectively evaporated. A glance at the instincts and voting records of her seven Labour champions tells you that they had always been with her in spirit.

They are littered with failures to vote against Tory austerity measures and the proposed hostile environment legislation, even as they profited from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership by increasing their majorities and signing up to his election manifesto commitments.

Tens of thousands of voters in Scotland have migrated away from Labour in the past five years. They have done so simply because they had lost faith in the party’s ability to protect them from the predations of the Conservatives and their corporate handmaidens in the city. They might not be the most committed supporters of the SNP but in an independent Scotland they at least saw a refuge from a Union increasingly characterised by hard, right-wing politics and the fear and loathing of those considered to be aliens and scroungers. The progress of Brexit has unleashed a malevolent and vengeful spirit in England and shown that they were right to cleave to an independent Scotland. Labour is finished across the UK now and with it goes the last hope of holding an essentially racist, war-mongering party of tax dodgers and illegal arms dealers to account.

You never find very many Conservatives rushing to the centre ground of British politics. This is because it’s a fantasy-land which doesn’t really exist in the real world. It’s the dream destination of political cowards who have simply lost any desire they ever had to fight the sworn enemies of their people. The centre ground is where you go if you want a quiet and comfortable life of apologising and deferring and taking care not to offend. It’s exactly where Tories like their Labour politicians to be, safely neutered in their delusions. When I hear the phrase “centrist”

I always think of the opening lines of Mary Howitt’s childhood fable: “Will you walk into my parlour, said a Spider to a Fly ...”

I’ve now, I think, come round to the view that an independence referendum doesn’t have to happen within the next 12 months or so.

The consequences of Brexit – deal or no-deal – are now becoming a reality throughout the UK and will be apparent for many years to come. Those high Tories and their corporate supporters who sold the lie to middle England are fleeing to their tax havens and ensuring the electric gates and the security systems are working in their mansions and driveways. An independent Scotland will be here soon enough and it will be accompanied by waves of English migrants seeking to escape The Purge. They will be the new Windrush Generation. Like all other economic migrants they will be made welcome and encouraged to put down their roots and to rekindle the old decency of their lost England in an independent Scotland.