SNP Cabinet Minister Fiona Hyslop declared on Monday morning that the election results showed “a tale of two countries.” 

They don’t though. It was a good night for nationalism north and south. The parties of the social status quo did well, the party of real change did badly.

This is no real surprise — when politics is dominated by flag-waving and constitution-mongering, getting the case for doing things differently an airing, much less a hearing is a struggle. As the workforces at the Caley railway works and BiFab are discovering. 

The SNP did have a good night, and Labour a terrible one. Of the six MEPs elected from Scotland, three are from the SNP, with one each from the Brexit Party, the Lib Dems and the Tories.  

Labour was the only party seriously campaigning across the whole UK and therefore having to craft a message and a policy that can appeal everywhere. 

In an election where the unresolved issue of Brexit was all that matters, this proved nigh on impossible. 

It was, though, a necessary stance if the coalition of both Leave and Remain voters that Labour will need to win a general election is to be created. 

This election was framed, by some parties and much of the media, as a proxy vote on leaving or remaining — and no other message got out. 

The idea that Scottish Labour could have had a different message to the party at UK level in an election like this is nonsensical.   

In Scotland, which had voted Remain, the SNP campaigned on an unequivocal stop Brexit platform. The Scottish Tories subsumed their pro-Brexit message under much talk of opposing the independence campaign, but more people listened to the one-note symphony of the Brexit Party.

The SNP will of course argue that this result strengthens its case for a second independence referendum. At the risk of sounding a bit dismissive, this can be pretty much be dismissed. 

For the SNP, any event large or small increases the grounds for another independence vote — the most recent example being Nicola Sturgeon’s reversal of the dictum about “politics not personalities” in declaring that if Boris Johnson wins the Tory leadership it makes the case for another indyref.

While they will talk of another indyref, the SNP leadership will be well aware that, in terms of independence, the significant figure last night isn’t their winning three seats. 

Rather, it is the — uncomfortable for them — split between pro and anti-independence parties, of 45/55, which almost exactly mirrors the 2014 result.  

This pattern, of voting identities persisting after referendums, which last night was demonstrated across the UK, should give those clamouring for another vote on the EU some pause for thought. 

The suggestion that this pattern will be disrupted by another poll rather than confirmed is fanciful. The consequences of offering Nigel Farage a “double or quits” Euro poll might have consequences lasting far longer than the results of any plebiscite. 

While the Euro poll results will doubtless generate much rhetoric regarding independence from the SNP, what will be conspicuously lacking is any serious willingness to push for a vote to take place. 

They (sensibly enough) aren’t interested in doing that until such times as they think they will win. What they are likely to engage in with energy and commitment is a fight with Westminster about their right to have another indyref. 

This keeps their supporters happy and serves as a useful distraction from other more substantive issues. 
Of these there is no lack, and for a party which claims to be about the future of Scotland, of pressing seriousness. 

Scotland’s manufacturing base is in a parlous state. Two significant industrial sites — the Caley Railway works in Glasgow and the Bifab yards in Fife are on the brink of closure. 

If Scotland is to make any sort of just transition to an environmentally sustainable future, these are the industrial footholds that need to be maintained.

The response of the SNP government has amounted to little more than remedial action and warm words, and these only after sustained campaigning by the unions involved. 

Partly this stems from the SNP’s economic outlook, which is basically New Labour in a kilt. Even in these instances, where the national interest in, if not public ownership then at least significant intervention and direction, is clear. 

It is also in part an extension of the SNP’s reflexive EU stance. Interventions such as those necessary for Bifab and the Caley might run contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of EU rules against state aid and for open competitive markets. 

Whether they do or not, the SNP attitude is not one of acting now and facing the consequence later.  

Challenging the logic of capital does not come easy to the SNP — in fairness it hasn’t to any governing party anywhere in the UK for decades. 

Yet doing so in or out of the EU is a prerequisite for rebuilding our social or industrial fabric. Lost amid the Leave/Remain froth of the European Parliament elections was the fact that Labour now promises to do just that. 

It is putting that challenge on the agenda that is Labour’s task now.