JEREMY CORBYN’S re-election in what is becoming Labour’s annual leadership contest appears to have changed very little. The Parliamentary Labour Party has no more accepted this result than it did the last one.

Meanwhile voters across Britain are no clearer about who is in charge of this deeply divided party nor the policies it advocates.

Does it for example support spending £200 billion on a second generation of Trident nuclear weapons or not? Is it against neoliberal economic orthodoxy or not? Is it against Britain’s continued use of military force in Syria or not? There are dozens of similar questions voters are bound to be asking.

Corbyn’s Momentum and the Labour right are at least united on one thing, we are told: both oppose Scottish independence.

But do they? For the hapless Kezia Dugdale confuses even that issue by suggesting from time to time she can conceive of circumstances where she might actually support it. And the worst kept secret in Scottish politics is that her Momentum-supporting deputy Alex Rowley is swithering about whether to break ranks and back self-determination himself.

Labour’s crisis is deepest in Scotland. Membership has not mushroomed as it has in England because the progressive opinion that might otherwise have backed Corbyn here supports independence. He does not. And those who may have had sympathy with Momentum have already joined the SNP, the Greens or the Scottish Socialist Party. Moreover Labour’s tattered reputation is hardly helped by reports a majority of Scots members backed Owen Smith.

Corbyn may be a socialist in the Tony Benn mould but Dugdale is not. Labour may be the biggest political party in western Europe but not in Scotland. There was a time when Scottish Labour was to the left of its national leadership. Now it is a party to the right of UK Labour and the SNP. The nationalists are no party of socialists. Their conference next week will again show both they and Scottish Labour follow the same orthodox neoliberal policy path.

Their “managerial” record in government at Holyrood this past decade is a poor one. Furthermore, as Martin Jacques and others have pointed out, the SNP are at one and the same time both the advocates of neoliberalism in Scotland and, in the eyes of the masses at least, its elected assassins.

You might think their failure to scrap the unfair council tax, like they promised, or to eradicate fuel poverty, or reform Scotland’s low-wage economy would see critical voices raised in opposition within their ranks.

Goodness knows they are quick to condemn such failure in others. But not a bit of it. Dissent is exceedingly rare in the modern SNP. When former ministers Alex Neil and Kenny MacAskill dared to speak out recently against the leader’s tactics on pursuing independence ahead of the Brexit negotiations, critics pointed out they were only “breaking ranks” because their careers were effectively over.

Voices raised against “Queen Nicola” in recent years amid the febrile and fiercely anti-Labour atmosphere of the independence campaign and subsequent parliamentary elections was considered tantamount to treachery in SNP eyes.

Consequently political opposition within the SNP is both weak and “feart.” The party machine takes a dim view of dissident voices and punishes them. The consequences for rational debate and constructive criticism are predictable. Take the current deputy leadership contest for example.

Leftwinger Tommy Shepherd MP for the huge working-class constituency of East Edinburgh is challenging the party’s Westminster leader and chief rightwinger Angus Robertson — the result is due to be announced at the SNP conference in Glasgow this week.

Tommy told me and a group of other independence activists he has “no policy differences with Angus” and that his campaign is based merely on “improving internal communications between the leadership and the membership.” This is nonsense of course. And it shows just how ill prepared the SNP left is to hold the party leadership to account.

A recent meeting in Glasgow to launch “SNP socialists” as a group within the party attracted just 40 people after the leadership threatened to act against it. Not much for a party with 125,000 members all claiming to be “left of centre.”

In a recent tweet, Robertson advertised a long list of fellow parliamentarians backing his candidacy with well-known Glasgow leftwingers Chris Stephens MP and Bill Kidd MSP (the party whip at Holyrood) prominent among them.

The SNP leadership insists those who promote socialism must wait until after independence, arguing that to do otherwise is divisive and jeopardises self-determination itself.

The Scottish Socialist Party rejects this philosophy. The truth is only a socialist message on independence will persuade Scotland’s working class majority to support it.

While Corbyn offers little to those convinced of the need to break with the British state, there are many with profound illusions in the SNP. The nationalists may have benefitted from Labour’s demise but they have done little to improve the lives of working-class people.

The latest Multiple Deprivation Index for example shows the same areas of Scotland that were the most disadvantaged in 1999 remain the most deprived today.

The SNP must shoulder its share of the blame for that. Their support has begun to fall as they implement further cuts to local services. This is in turn hampering the wider independence cause.

If a second independence referendum is off the table for the foreseeable future, the independence movement needs to use the time to work out a better case than the one the SNP advocates.

We must spell out the benefits independence can bring Scotland’s working-class majority. For the Scottish Socialist Party independence is about change. Change that includes a commitment to full employment on living wages, a business policy that harnesses our population’s full innovative potential, rescinding anti-union laws, an energy policy that guarantees security of supply and eradicates fuel poverty, pensions that deliver greater dignity in retirement, public ownership of our railways and energy sector, free public transport to help combat climate change, extending democracy through a modern, democratic republic, exiting Nato and enhancing our security through improved international relations, scrapping Trident and moving the funds to improve opportunities for our disadvantaged youngsters.

• Colin Fox is the national co-spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party