FOR me, the weekend picture that captured the contradictions (and absurdities) of the current political situation was that of Jeremy Corbyn prancing self-consciously in front of a stature of comedian Eric Morecambe in the eponymous seaside town in the north of England. Meanwhile, 200 miles to the south, more than a million people were marching against Brexit.

Now Jeremy Corbyn is not stupid. He made a deliberate calculation not to be at the London march. His attention is focused on the May 2 local elections in England – hence his campaigning in the Lancaster City Council area, where Labour currently have only a one-seat majority. Corbyn is going gangbusters to win these local elections, as a launchpad for any General Election. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell freely admitted that the Labour leader fronting the Put It To The People march would risk alienating Leave voters on May 2.

This may be a cynical ploy, but it’s hard-headed. The upcoming English local elections take place mainly in non-metropolitan and coastal communities (such as Morecambe) which voted heavily for Leave in 2016. In these conservative places, Corbyn’s left-wing Labour struggles to gain a hearing. This is down to their class and age profile.

The Leave vote in England’s small towns was not due to a working-class protest against austerity. Instead, it reflected the worries – justified or simply anti-immigrant fantasy – of home-owning retirees and of the marginal, non-urban poor (in Morecambe rents are low).

I mention this because Corbyn should not be judged simply by his lacklustre performances at Westminster. He wants to get into Number 10. More importantly, allies such as McDonnell, or the radical, grassroots Momentum movement, are determined to win the next General Election – whatever it takes. Their eyes are on power. This should be a lesson for the SNP and the wider Yes movement.

The EU question is vitally important but winning Scotland’s independence is more so. Without winning political power in Scotland, we can’t transform the economy or society – and we certainly won’t be able to decide our direct relationship with the rest of Europe.

Yet if we don’t seize self-determination now, during the current paralysis of the British state, I fear the opportunity will be lost for a generation or more. Strategically important as it is, the issue of Europe should not wag the independence tail.

That said, I think we need to get Nicola Sturgeon’s participation in Saturday’s march into sensible perspective. Distasteful as I found it, I don’t think we should get our knickers in a twist about the FM having a selfie taken with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin meister. Certainly, I would advise Nicola to use a very long spoon when supping with Mr Campbell.

He was a key mover in the Better Together campaign and has not changed his Unionist spots. His PR company is Portland Communications, a lucrative bolthole for Blair’s former Downing Street staff. Portland helped organise the Put It To The People march.

It also helped the Qatari oligarchy steal the 2022 football World Cup. The Portland corporate website pumps out a steady stream of warnings to its corporate clients regarding Scottish independence.

However, Alastair Campbell is not the point. We need to judge participation in Saturday’s march on the rights or wrongs of its key demand: for a popular vote to take place on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. That is a straightforward, democratic demand that crystallises opposition to the right-wing, reactionary project to take Britain out of Europe. The 2016 EU referendum was won on racist, anti-immigrant arguments by a dangerously right-wing populist cabal. That’s why the Scottish working class voted Remain.

Saturday’s demo mobilised more than a million people against persistent attempts by the Tory Government to deny MPs – never mind the electorate – any democratic say in the subsequent Brexit negotiations. That includes trying to stop MPs voting on triggering Article 50 in the first place.

At each stage, the May clique has been more concerned with preserving the fraying unity of the Tory Party than democratic accountability. Finally, last Wednesday, Mrs May launched an outright populist attack on the right of Parliament to even deliberate on her deal.

Against this background, it is perfectly understandable that hundreds of thousands took to the streets. And it was perfectly correct for a progressive SNP to be represented. I do appreciate the dubious ensemble of class interests on Saturday’s platform alongside Nicola. This testifies to the fact that the current parliamentary Conservative Party has ceased to represent adequately the needs of the dominant factions of British industrial and financial capitalism. Which explains the appearance of Michael “Tarzan” Heseltine, the quintessential spokesperson for British industrial capital, whose supply chains are inextricably bound to the EU. Or former Tory Anna Soubry, whose miniscule independent group of MPs is bidding for the franchise to create a new, Blairite “centre party” to represent English liberal middle-class professionals.

However, the true political test is not Saturday’s platform roster but whether the SNP leadership – implicitly or explicitly, by accident or design – subordinates winning independence to disputing Brexit. To make that mistake would aid the stabilisation of the elitist British political system and of exploitative British capitalism as a whole. Scotland would have thrown away a unique historical moment when the British establishment is at its most divided and weakest.

Which brings me to my central contention. The SNP must be as focused as Jeremy Corbyn about winning ultimate political power.

In this regard, it would have been more apposite for the FM and the SNP leadership to have supported an explicitly Scottish demo, demanding Scotland’s sovereign right to vote on Mrs May’s Brexit package.

Such a demonstration would have put huge pressure on the Scottish Tories and Labour to support Scotland’s anti-Brexit stance – or be shamed. And the logical connection to independence would have been clear to any waverers: the only certain way for Scotland to negotiate a beneficial economic relationship with the EU is to do it ourselves. Which, of course, requires independence.

After Saturday’s demo, the real and present danger is that Scottish interests will be subsumed by developments in England. A hard Brexit now looks unlikely. The more obvious outcome is that Brexit gets postponed for a long time, as a result of May falling, her EU deal being rejected, or Prime Minister Corbyn trying to renegotiate a Norway-style deal with Brussels.

In these circumstances, neither the Tory nor Labour establishments will feel obliged to treat Scotland as a priority. Worse, voter fatigue will set in. Which is why we need to put independence on the agenda immediately as our solution to Brexit, not as part of some parallel constitutional process.

If there’s a General Election in the short term, we should declare that the election of a majority of SNP MPs in Scotland is a mandate to negotiate independence. If the Tories cling on in some form, then we should proceed to indyref2 and bring Westminster to a halt if whoever is Tory PM refuses to concede our right to do so.

Nicola gave a great speech on Saturday, but she should not let it go to her head. We need action, not words.