The threat to Labour in Scotland may not be Ukip, but a 'Braveheart' tendency First, it is straight SNPism. Blame everything on London, whinge, complain, victimhood and grievance. It says: "I was Labour leader fighting the Scottish National Party for three years and now I've realised that they were right all along." To suggest that Labour's problem in Scotland is the nature of the link between the UK party and the Scottish party is to accept the SNP's argument that all Scotland's problems are caused by its relationship with England. She might as well have defected. Second, it was an admission of weakness. Boohoo, I'm so useless I couldn't even stand up to Ed Miliband. And third, it was divisive. Still. Perhaps it was all part of a master plan to put out all the rubbish in one go and make Jim Murphy look good by ensuring that, if he takes over, he starts with a rock-bottom basket case. For that is certainly what the Scottish Labour Party is now. Last week's opinion polls were shocking. Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, said: "Once a year or less we do a poll that genuinely surprises me and has big immediate implications." This one put the SNP on 52 per cent of the vote in Scotland. It was widely reported that such a result would give the SNP 54 of Scotland's 59 seats, reducing Labour from 40 to just four. That was the optimistic scenario for Labour. The usual assumption of a uniform swing across Scotland would give all but two seats to the SNP. Labour would have one (Willie Bain, Glasgow North East) and the Lib Dems one (Alistair Carmichael, Orkney and Shetland). YouGov had a poll that was less extreme, but even that would give the SNP, which currently has six MPs at Westminster, a total of 47 seats and Labour just 10. Something has happened in Scotland, but what, and is there anything that Murphy, now the favourite to win the Labour leadership there, can do about it? It is fashionable to say that Labour in Scotland has been in trouble for a long time, but it isn't very true. It lost control of the Scottish Parliament in 2007, but in Westminster elections Labour won 40 per cent of the vote even in Tony Blair's worst election, 2005, and Gordon Brown raised it to 42 per cent in 2010. Now Labour is on an average of 25 per cent. What has happened is that the referendum campaign broke the pattern of the past few years, in which some voters became voted SNP for Scottish elections and Labour for Westminster. Now there is a large group of former Labour voters who voted "yes" to independence and who are energised by the idea that they almost overturned "the system." The usual assumption is that such surges of enthusiasm will fade when it comes to making a choice between David Cameron and Ed Miliband for prime minister. But this time those voters aren't coming back. The referendum inspired a whole section of leftish opinion with the promise of a socialist Scotland, against which the prospect of electing an insipid English person to make distant compromises as a Labour prime minister in London seems less exciting. We rationalists assumed that the referendum would settle the Scottish question for a generation. How charmingly naive that now seems. The referendum gave the Scots permission to vote SNP safe in the knowledge that the question of independence has been decided for now. If Scottish voters want to vote "against the system" a vote for the SNP next year would cause more trouble in Westminster than voting Labour ever could. Of course, the SNP is not a simple expression of the anti-politics mood. It is in government in Edinburgh after all. But it and, increasingly, the Green Party now pose a serious threat to Labour. What a paradox it would be if it turned out that it was not Ukip that disrupted "politics as we know it" but the Braveheart tendency, re-fighting William Wallace's war of Scottish independence seven centuries later. Last week's by-election in South Yorkshire to replace a Labour police and crime commissioner caught up in the Rotherham child sex abuse business showed that there are limits to what Ukip can achieve. Nigel Farage's lot may win the Rochester by-election later this month, but if they cannot come close in Labour's heartland on a low turnout (just 15 per cent), they are not in a position to disrupt the general election next May. The SNP is likely to have a greater effect next year, and to Labour's cost. Jim Murphy is Labour's best chance, and would get on his Irn Bru crates to try to persuade Scottish voters to focus on living standards rather than on blaming London. He would pull something back for Labour, but so much has already been lost. twitter.com/@JohnRentoul