THE SNP was attacked at the Labour conference for focusing the independence debate on the politics of identity, difference and grievance.

Delegates were also warned that a victory for the Nationalists in next year's referendum would kill off the British Labour Party.

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont railed against Nationalists' cynicism and insisted their central deceit was that inequality in Scotland began in 1707 and could be eradicated by the creation of an independent state.

She said: "For the Nationalists, the misery of the people isn't a wrong to be corrected, it is a chance to be exploited. For them, grievance is not to be addressed, it is to be nurtured."

She insisted the prize in 2014 was huge - to defeat the politics of Nationalism, "a virus that has affected too many nations and done so much harm; an ideology that never achieved anything".

Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran invoked the name of Keir Hardie, the Scot who helped found the Labour Party, which she said had been shaped and led by Scots guided by values of solidarity, fairness and equality, creating lasting monuments such as the NHS.

"If the SNP have their way," she told conference, "their plan will mean the break-up of the Labour Party."

She added: "Alex Salmond is not going to bring our movement to an end, because we are the party of Scotland whose values are the values of the Scottish people, the party that shaped a generation and made good on the promise of a parliament."