by Rab Bruce’s Spider

There are plenty of opinion pieces on Kezia Dugdale’s resignation, so I’ll keep this fairly short.

First of all, it seems more than likely that she was persuaded to resign by Jeremy Corbyn. Even he must have realised that what passed for briefings on Scottish politics from Scottish Labour were so full of lies and distortions that relying on them made him look more than foolish and ignorant. It is very possible that Kezia Dugdale has paid the price for that. Corbyn is certainly very ignorant when it comes to Scotland, which is not a very desirable trait in an aspiring Prime Minister, but even he must have realised he was being badly misled. Like all Westminster Unionists, he is desperate to keep Scotland in the UK, but being made to look so out of touch was denting his image despite the media’s best efforts to play down his succession of gaffes.

As for Kezia, her own resignation statement confirms that, like many politicians, she was more concerned with Party than with Country, because she claimed that she had spent every waking moment working for the betterment of Labour. Somehow, I’m not sure that’s why people ought to go into politics, but perhaps that’s nit-picking.

The next thing to dominate the Scottish headlines will be the choice of her successor. The problem for Corbyn is that there are very few Scottish Labour MSPs who actually support him. However, what Kezia Dugdale’s continual changes of stance on just about every matter of policy - except Scottish independence - has shown is that there are probably plenty of people in Scottish Labour who would be prepared to say just about anything in order to claim the top job. There is no shortage of brass necks in Scottish Labour. We await the outcome of the leadership contest with interest.

Finally, the big question is whether jumping on the Corbyn bandwagon will help Scottish Labour at all. Perhaps the short-term dream of a socialist Labour Government which will somehow be elected even though there is no General Election in the offing might tempt some of the less committed Yessers to back Corbyn. With IndyRef2 nowhere in sight, this is perhaps an understandable view. If we are going to be chained to the UK, why not back somebody who has an outside chance of defeating the Tories?

In the longer term, however, surely even the most ardent Labour supporter can see that Corbyn’s pro-Brexit, anti-Indy stance is totally at odds with what any sensible Yesser wants. Besides which, he has shown that he has little interest in targeting Tory seats at all, concentrating instead on attacking the SNP at every opportunity. Since the SNP have publicly stated that they would back him in the House of Commons against the Tories, this reveals his true motivations; he would prefer to keep the Tories in power than see Scotland become a normal country.

Even if you set all these fairly major considerations aside, the quality of contenders to replace Kezia Dugdale must make it doubtful that any of them will be able to make much difference to Labour’s current third place ranking in Scottish politics.