Labour is on the rack as it contemplates a heavy election defeat in Scotland at the hands of the SNP. To do a deal at Westminster with the party it so profoundly detests — which it has spent a decade and more in Scotland trying to destroy — is anathema.
It is a deal that could precipitate yet another confidence-sapping referendum, tie the party’s hands on tax and welfare policies and hand influence and possibly even ministerial office to a gloating Alex Salmond.
And yet to rule it out altogether at this stage, with the polls suggesting a haemorrhage of Labour seats, threatens a more awful fate: to cut the party off from the one alliance that may stand between it and a Tory-led majority in parliament.
Thus it is that senior figures, from Ed Miliband down, have refused to rule out some form of arrangement with the SNP after the general election. It might fall short of a full-blown coalition, perhaps taking the form of a “confidence and supply” deal, whereby the SNP would offer its support on a case-by-case basis in return for concessions on issues dear to the Nationalist cause. However vague the offer, it might just be enough to keep David Cameron out of office.
There is, too, another argument being put about by party members in Scotland for an understanding of sorts with the Nationalists. It is based on the harsh reality of what is happening across the country. The SNP is rampant. It is supported by voters who believe it stands up for Scotland, and is led by a first minister who enjoys unprecedented popularity. For those Labour supporters who were persuaded to vote “yes” in the referendum and must now be won back, the SNP presents an appealing prospect.
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It is to these voters that Jim Murphy, the party’s Scottish leader, and Mr Miliband, his boss, sought to address themselves at the weekend. Without mentioning the SNP or its policies, Labour is seeking to present itself as sympathetic to the same ideals — on social equality, more power over welfare, tackling poverty, opposing Tory austerity cuts.
To rule out a deal with the SNP in the event of an unresolved election result would, runs this argument, alienate the very Labour supporters the party is trying to win back to the fold.
It is, however, a specious and ultimately self-defeating course of action, based on expediency rather than principle. For a party that is attempting to regain its place in Scotland, win back respect and re-establish a core set of values, it blurs the message just at the point where it should be clearest.
We are too weak, it says, to win on our own, and so we are prepared to contemplate a deal with the party we oppose on the most fundamental principle of all — the preservation of the Union. We are willing to compromise on the ideals that established devolution in the first place, the ones on which Donald Dewar based the concept of a new Scottish parliament. And we will go so far as to accept an alliance with the party we have opposed tooth and nail on the core issue of independence.
It is a compromise that may, come the election, win over some wavering supporters. It is one that could, in the days following a general election, gain Labour a shaky hand on power. It might even keep out the dreaded Tories. But if in the course of it Labour loses its soul, then the gain will prove to be a hollow one.