The Alexander Technique is a popular hands-on alternative therapy defined as working to inhibit "harmful personal habits" that interfere with the functioning of the whole self. It involves a process of blocking one's "too quick and unthinking reactions". The Labour leader at Holyrood seemed bent on inventing her own version last week. The Wendy Alexander technique seems to consist of something approaching the opposite of the original. It appears to involve throwing caution to the wind and precipitating a huge internal wrangle in her own ranks by spontaneously and unilaterally ditching her party's opposition to a referendum on Scottish independence and urging the SNP to "bring it on".

Since the 2007 Holyrood elections the Labour Party's disarray has given the Nationalist government one of the longest political honeymoons in history. Before the poll, Unionist parties had warned that a Nationalist administration would become so enmeshed in constitutional jousting with Westminster that the bread-and-butter business of governing Scotland would be neglected. This has not happened. Instead, Alex Salmond and his team, wary of frightening the natives, have chosen to put the issue of independence firmly on the back burner.

Opinion polls suggest that despite the popularity of the SNP administration, most Scots continue to oppose outright independence. Presumably, Ms Alexander calculated that an early poll would settle the constitutional question in her favour and leave Labour in Scotland to take on the SNP on health, education and local government finance. This was a woeful miscalculation for several reasons. The example of Quebec suggests that plebiscites do not settle such issues. They simply result in the call for another poll and keep the constitutional issue firmly at the top of the agenda. Secondly, even if she believes an early poll is in the national interest, why say so without ensuring that she had enough support to get her way?

Thirdly, a referendum is more complex than it appears. The public frequently use them to answer questions other than the one on the ballot paper. The English and Welsh local government election results were so shockingly bad for Labour as to suggest voters have had enough of it and would use any opportunity to give it a kicking. This would make a Scottish referendum on independence an extremely high-risk strategy for a Unionist party and raises the spectre of Scotland's long-term interests being decided on the basis of short-term politics.

Ms Alexander has damaged not only herself and her party but also Gordon Brown. If she was trying to bounce the Prime Minister into a decision she was making a bad mistake. He is reeling from a series of unpopular decisions and desperately poor poll ratings and she has merely added to his burden, reinforcing his image as a directionless ditherer. It is inevitable that there will be differences between Labour in London and Scotland. This is a no-win situation for Scottish Labour, which is cast invariably as either a wrecker or a poodle. But there is such as thing as the wrong time to pick a fight, and this is one of them.

If Ms Alexander is to stay on as Labour's leader at Holyrood, she needs to get her house in order in double-quick time. Democracy is ill-served by an opposition in such disarray. There are fears that the SNP is promising what it cannot deliver on health and education. Its plans for a local income tax do not stack up. Our prisons have never been so dangerously overcrowded.

It is time the SNP's honeymoon was terminated by an opposition capable of holding it to account. Instead, Ms Alexander has made herself a laughing stock. The Alexander Technique was developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander, a Shakespearian actor who kept losing his voice. His namesake's recent ill-considered pronouncements have left many of her party's supporters wishing the same would happen to her.