AS a disclaimer before I continue, at the time of writing this no results had been announced in the Scottish election. For all I know, the LibDems have swept every constituency seat and Willie Rennie is about to become First Minister.

I doubt it but, if that turns out to be the case at the time of printing, I had no clue when I wrote it.

What we did know was that Labour had heavily lost the Hartlepool by-election. The Conservatives won the seat with a majority of 6940 votes. The reason this is very telling is because Hartlepool has been held by Labour since its creation. The dismantling of the so-called red wall was one of the key trends in the 2019 General Election and if this by-election is anything to go by, it shows no sign of slowing.

Many results had still to be declared, but it looked like Labour were also suffering notable defeats in the English council elections. Not only are they likely to lose control of many, we were also seeing councils with no overall majority move to Conservative majority control.

The coverage of the Hartlepool by-election and the English council elections was focused on what this means for UK Labour leader Keir Starmer. After a year in the role, Starmer has made as much of an impact in UK politics as a drop of water makes in a desert.

The mild, moderate, fence-sitting that London’s political and media elite love so much does not seem to be resonating with the electorate.

READ MORE: Labour must now split from London – and back independence

To be frank, there is little value in me analysing the woes of Keir Starmer, and I have little interest in doing so. However, the performance of the UK Labour Party is of interest to those of us in Scotland, given that we rely on the English population to decide if we have to suffer through more Tory Governments.

You hear a lot of people who consider themselves moderate Unionists saying: “You don’t need to leave the UK, just work for a Labour government!”. Even if we follow that logic, it doesn’t matter if every single person in Scotland votes Labour because we don’t decide the party that governs us at Westminster. And so, the results of these council and by-elections give us an insight into whether we are any closer to ending Conservative rule. The results I’ve seen so far suggest we’re not.

As I write, former Labour MP and current Labour peer Lord Mandelson is on the telly saying he does not blame his former constituents for voting Conservative and criticising former Labour MP Laura Pidcock’s argument that the party should be more to the left and should put forward radical policies.

Given Mandelson’s influence during the neoliberal Blair/Brown years and his pivotal role in Labour’s transformation into “New” Labour, his urging of the party to move to the right should be of no surprise, but it is very telling, nonetheless.

If it is made clear that English voters, who make up the majority in any UK election, have no intention of ever booting out Boris Johnson or his corrupt cronies, then the need for independence could not be starker.

Surely, we have a better chance if we turn to ourselves for better policy, rather than protecting ourselves from endless Tory ones.

The list of lies, scandal, and dodgy dealings that has followed the Tories since they’ve been in power grows every single day. Off the top of my head there has been the Windrush scandal, the Grenfell Tower scandal, the recent donors-paying-for-Downing-Street-decorating scandal, the Dominic-Cummings-driving-for-hours-to-test-his-eyesight-scandal, and so many more. Yet, the popularity of the Tories in England seems to either persist or increase.

By the time you read this, we will have a clearer view of at least some of the results of the Scottish election, but given Scotland has not shown majority support for the Conservatives since 1955, I doubt we are going to see one at Holyrood.

If that is the case, then the results we are seeing in England should be a cause for concern. If you live in Scotland, it is fact that the election results in England matter to you, and inevitably will affect you, so long as we are part of this Union.

If we find there is a pro-independence majority delivered in this Scotland election, then we will finally have a mandate to change that.