NOT SINCE the summer of ‘96 has the Scottish Labour Party been in such disarray over constitutional tactics. In many ways these were the best of times for Labour, with the Tories facing a parliamentary wipe-out North of the Border and Michael Forsyth staging a personal re-enactment of Custer’s last stand.

But still Labour got itself in a terrible fankle. In June of that year Tony Blair, the PM in waiting, announced that when his party came to power, as they would within a year, they would hold a referendum on Scottish devolution. Two questions would be asked, one on the broad principle and the other on whether tax-varying powers should be included.

Two months later his party’s Scottish executive rebelled against Blair and overturned the plans, eventually reaching a compromise in which there would be not a two-question referendum, but two referendums with three questions, the second referendum being being triggered if the tax power was ever to be invoked. Quite a thought, eh? What price Gordon Brown’s abolition of the 10p tax rate having to go to a plebiscite?

Anyway such was the ridicule heaped on the party at that time that George Robertson, shadow Scottish Secretary, was forced to overrule the executive’s decision just a week later. Within six months a ruthless New Labour purge of the executive ensured it would never embarrass the Great Leader again.

But Labour’s summer of ‘96 seems an oasis of calm by comparison with the chaos of ‘08. The first anniversary the SNP coming to power at Holyrood appears to have caused a rush of blood to Wendy Alexander’s head, and with it yesterday’s u-turn on holding a referendum.

Refusing any truck with another referendum on Scotland’s future if independence is an option on the ballot paper has been an article of faith for the Unionist coalition Labour has tried to construct with the Tories and LibDems.

Their chosen vehicle of change, the Scottish Constitutional Commission, was so purged of independent thought that George Reid was blackballed for membership. Gordon Brown didn’t even want it to called a commission. And when it finally convened last week both Westminster and Holyrood both wanted to run the show.

Still, Sir Kenneth Calman came across well on launch day and said he was determined to come up with a set of proposals by summer of next year. But then what? Is there any set of proposals that could conceivably satisfy all six clients? That is to say the three signed up political party groups at both Holyrood and Westminster?

And could anything conceivably come out of that which could be distilled into a White Paper that could serve as a referendum question? As they say about a horse designed by a committee, this all sounds like a bit of a camel and they’re now asking it to complete a steeplechase.

Perhaps the following scenario could just about be possible. I doubt it but let’s imagine a referendum in 2010. Even the uber-Unionists have agreed that the status quo is no longer tenable, but they have Calman’s “devolution-max” plan for fiscal autonomy and more devolved powers to rally around.

You therefore get a referendum ballot paper as follows:

Select one of the following:

“I agree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the Government of the UK so that Scotland becomes an independent state.”

OR

“I agree that the powers of the Scottish Parliament should be extended in line with the the Calman Report.”

As I said above, I think there are simply too many hurdles to this. But whichever way you look at it, Wendy Alexander’s referendum u-turn means we are all dancing to Alex Salmond’s jig now.