WHY is there never a tank around when you need one? Take Jeremy Corbyn on Monday night. Or as the dozens of his now departed frontbenchers would say, PLEASE take Jeremy Corbyn. There was the Labour leader, marching out of the Commons to address a rally of supporters in Parliament Square, and no one had thought to bring along a tank so that he could proclaim, Boris Yeltsin-style, that he would never give in to a coup by his elected MPs.  

Instead, he was left to stand on a makeshift stage, flanked by John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, the Abbott and Costello of British politics, and shout into what looked like an old CB radio. He made Citizen Smith look as smooth as Barack Obama, but part of Jeremy’s charm/capacity to be head-spinningly infuriating is that he just does not care about appearances. Which is just as well when you have all the poise of an exploded cushion. 

It says something about the state the Labour Party is in that it is managing to make the Conservatives look like the very model of political togetherness. There are the Tories, fresh from having plunged the country into turmoil as a result of an internal Bullingdon club spat that spiralled out of control, a general election is on the way, HM opposition is at the penalty spot, and victory should be a shoo-in. Instead, Mr Corbyn has made his party England to the Tories’ Iceland. That is not quite correct. England’s manager resigned within minutes of the final whistle, whereas Jezza has had the constitution of Rasputin. 

If ever Mr Corbyn wants to make a few bob after politics, he could run courses in developing cast-iron confidence. Imagine having one after another of your staff tell you, straight to your face, some of them in tears, that they have no confidence in your abilities and that you have to go. Yet on you plough, believing that it does not matter what the staff say, the customers love you. They paid their money, in the case of Labour just three quid for membership, they made their choice, and you are sticking by it like superglue. 

By all accounts the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on Monday night was a horror show, Abigail’s Party on acid, but then it has not been the best of weeks all round for Labour, and we are still only half way through. As a general rule, when a party starts the week with its leader firing a senior lieutenant in a midnight phone call, all is not well. One after another the resignations came, culminating in yesterday’s vote of no confidence in the leader. 

The crisis at Labour HQ has been so all-consuming few have paid too much attention to what is happening in Scotland, which is generally how the Scottish Labour leadership likes it. Scotland briefly came to the fore in Mr Corbyn’s reshuffle when he realised that, with Ian Murray, the party’s sole Scottish MP, having resigned there was no-one to replace him. At the time of writing (now there is a phrase that is being much deployed these days), a mop with a crayoned paper face is currently taking the place of the Shadow Scottish Secretary, though the cleaner wants it back before 6pm. 

As he departed, Mr Murray delicately left the door ajar to future change in Scottish Labour. Joining him in this endeavour was Margaret Curran, former MP and MSP. Both were at pains to make clear that they had not changed their position on independence - it was still A Bad Thing - but they nevertheless accepted that it was on the table following the EU vote and it had to be looked at. In the Times, Ms Curran wrote: “Scottish Labour must face square on the growing divergence between the politics of Scotland and the rest of Britain.” Between Nicola Sturgeon placing indyref2 on the table and Scottish Labour doing the same with federalism, Scotland is going to need a bigger table soon. At this rate there will be no room for Willie Rennie’s five-piece jigsaw. 

What are we to make of these murmurings from Scottish Labour, allied to leader Kezia Dugdale’s earlier assertion that she might change her stance on independence if the UK-wide EU vote, as it has, went against Remain? Is seismic change afoot or is this another discussion about the position of the deckchairs on the Titanic that is Scottish Labour? 

That depends on how the party’s current problems play out. The last week has offered one day of reckoning after another for the British political classes. They have learned, in no particular order, that the divide between Scotland and much of the rest of the UK is real and growing; ditto the split between metropolitan areas and towns; that the Westminster (and EU) elite is as despised now, if not more so, than during the expenses scandal; and that when it comes to immigration, large parts of the country rather fancy building one of Donald Trump’s walls. Labour has to recognise all of this. Crucially, it has to acknowledge the deep divide within its own ranks and among those who are, or were, supporters. If it cannot bridge those divides it is finished, pure and simple. 

The problem is a familiar one, or it should be since it has existed from day one of the party’s existence. Labour was always a coalition of convenience between the working classes, who paid their union dues and bankrolled the party, and the middle classes. By appealing to enough voters on both sides, Labour could win a majority in Britain’s two party, first past the post system. Those days are over. In Scotland, Labour support has drifted to the SNP; in the rest of the UK it has gone to Ukip or stayed at home, disaffected. Labour is no longer the only show in town for the anti-Tory vote, yet it continues to act as if it has a divine right to exist as such a repository. It must either broaden its appeal anew, or it has to split into factions and find common cause where it can. 

By rebelling against Mr Corbyn as they have, the PLP may just have begun that latter process. They have made it clear they do not wish to abide by the result of the leadership election. At the same time, the broader, more left-wing membership of the party, those who elected Mr Corbyn in such overwhelming numbers last time, are not prepared to see their decision overturned. If a leadership contest occurs, there is every chance Mr Corbyn will stand again and win again. If that happens, those rebelling Labour MPs will have run out of options other than to form a separate party. It will be a smaller force than before, no more than a glorified pressure group is the fear of some, but its members will be on the road back towards being a proper opposition rather than an increasingly bad, fairly tiresome joke. Ms Dugdale needs to decide her own, uniquely Scottish, way forward. Head office is otherwise engaged.