Who would be a Scottish Labour MP? Amongst Parliamentarians across these isles they must now be the most forlorn, despondent and politically adrift. Caught up in a nasty party civil war they neither anticipated or desired they are the nobody’s children of UK politics. Looking at them this week they seem bewildered, befuddled, even genuinely upset. They had been left in this most impossible of politically invidious situations. In the meeting places of Westminster I observed many of them in shocked huddles, looking blankly at each other, trying to make sense of this extraordinary political development. Some of us in the SNP group were even offering words of comfort – you’d have to have a heart of stone not to.

They were being asked to chose between their Scottish leader – the notional head of their party in Scotland – and the Prime Minister, the head of their party across the UK and their boss in Parliament. The two most important figures in their political lives were at loggerheads and they were expected to pick a side.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After 14 years of the Tories they had finally prevailed. A new golden age was to be delivered. Tory Westminster chaos would be ended, poverty would be eradicated, energy prices lowered and grateful constituents would ensure a long and prosperous political career. Some of them would have been envisaging glorious ministerial careers with the opportunity to run something and make meaningful change. Who knows, some of them might even have been dreaming of the ultimate prize for a Scottish Labour MP at the end of their career – a political resting place in the House off Lords.

I have been closely observing these new MPs and they are a curious bunch of mainly nice and seemingly dedicated parliamentarians. Some have been trying to secure a place in the Commons for years, some are political novices who never thought for a moment that they would ever grace the green benches. Scotland voted for them overwhelmingly believing in their message of change and they were swept into office.

But even as the keys to the shiny new offices in Portcullis House were being handed out there was already a sense that something wasn’t quite right. Unnecessary political mistakes – the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel payments, even the Prime Minister’s ill-judged eyewear episode — exposed a party without a plan and without that sure footedness. Within a year they were the Scottish tribunes of the most unpopular Government in recent history. Personally they face the indignity of becoming Parliamentary one termers – MPs who can’t win a re-election. Throughout all the crises their main pre-occupation seemed to be raising issues about the Scottish Government, further antagonising their own constituents who want their MP to properly represent them in Westminster.

So what happens now? The only real solution would be for either Starmer or Sarwar to go. The ideal solution would be for both of them to depart the political stage. Labour are now more or less doomed to third place in the Scottish election and all this week’s shenanigans did was to make this a certainty. Scottish Labour are now without a believable narrative or a meaningful relationship with the mother party.

Some desperate commentators are trying to present this as some sort of win for Sarwar. That he is standing up for Scotland – finally dispensing with the branch office jibe. But for all the gloss and dross it is a disaster. Already our communications department are designing the materials and they will not be holding back. Starmer coming to Scotland will be the most hilarious visit to Scotland by a sitting Prime Minister ever. Scottish Labour are nothing without the UK party and trying to pretend that they can be separate but somehow aligned just looks absurd. The pathetic attempts to kiss and make up as if nothing happened are simply embarrassing and fooling no-one.

Anas simply got it wrong. He really expected to be followed into the attack with a clutch of colleagues. A palace coup was designed and executed for Sarwar to take the credit and for Wes Streeting to take the crown. Together they would respectively run the UK and Scotland. What they didn’t count on was a Number 10 in desperation mode finally getting something like its act

together – pleading with Cabinet colleagues to stay. Whatever offers were made it worked. Sarwar was alone, looking like a prize lemon in a vegetable stall.

Scottish Labour are left navigating the political wasteland of Sarwar’s petulance and it will take years to patch things together. His clumsy attempt at defenestration has inadvertently bolstered Starmer’s position. He took aim at the king and missed. Starmer even sounds more confident and this week has demonstrated something approaching a swagger. Without Sarwar, Starmer would probably have been toast by the end of the month.

The only thing that was right about Sarwar’s attempted coup was the timing. It was the last best chance to change the leadership of the Labour Party before May’s election. There is the Gorton and Denton by-election at the end of the month but defeat is already baked in, even a reasonably placed third place would probably be accepted as a satisfactory result. It will also be too late.

So the show will stumble on with the main characters playing their part as the best and worst of political frenemies. There will be talk of challenges and there will be talk of Starmer’s future but the key players are ocked in and this is it. Starmer will lead UK Labour and Sarwar a divided Scottish Labour.

But I ask you to think of those stuck in the middle. Those who belong to both camps and none. Those who must ask their dutiful questions about the Scottish Government while professing loyalty to two opposing leaders. Those who must navigate the wreckage.

Who would be a Scottish Labour MP?